


Cursed

by yeou_bi



Series: Monsters Within [2]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Death, Exorcisms, Ghosts, Haunting, M/M, Mystery, Possession, Revenge, Swearing, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 46,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28780677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeou_bi/pseuds/yeou_bi
Summary: Two years after Minseok has quit the Office, Chanyeol wonders if there ever is an end to him fighting ghosts.Two years after being forced to work together, Jongdae and Jongin start questioning what it means to be roommates.
Relationships: Kim Jongdae | Chen/Kim Jongin | Kai, Kim Minseok | Xiumin/Park Chanyeol
Series: Monsters Within [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2110074
Comments: 8
Kudos: 5





	1. sharing a space

\- alone together -

“Why don’t you just start living with him?” Yura asked as she watched Chanyeol tie his shoes in the entrance. She chewed on a cucumber as if she was a farmer’s daughter in the countryside. “You’re there all the time anyway. Might as well save the transport fees.”  
He didn’t comment because they had discussed this before and she was the one to talk. She was thirty-one and yet she also still lived with their parents because she enjoyed her single life a little too much.  
“She probably wants more time in the bathroom,” Baekhyun said. One half of him was already outside the door like a dog happy to go on a walk. When Chanyeol was at home, Baekhyun usually was there, too. He never said it but Chanyeol suspected that Baekhyun had secretly adopted his family. They didn’t know he was there but there probably was comfort in familiar places. But when Chanyeol left the house, Baekhyun wandered off and did whatever ghosts did all day. Sometimes he came back and was barely visible, sometimes he almost looked human.  
“You’ve been dating for, what, two years now?” Yura said with her mouth full of cucumber. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid to bring it up.”  
“There’s not enough space for two people,” Chanyeol said and stood to zip up his jacket. She raised her eyebrows, so he quickly added, “It’s fine when I’m a guest but there’s no space for my stuff.”  
“Then move,” Yura said. “If there’s no space, get a bigger place. Or let him move here. There’s enough space for one more person. What’s so hard about that? Does he own his apartment and can’t sell it because it’s haunted?”  
Baekhyun laughed and floated back to angle his head at her. He was shorter than her and Chanyeol realized that he couldn’t remember whether that had been the case when Baekhyun had still been alive.  
“That guy’s apartment is the least haunted place on the planet,” Baekhyun said but Yura couldn’t hear him. He turned to Chanyeol. “You should tell her that.”  
Chanyeol ignored him. “It’s not that easy,” he said and picked up his duffel bag. He mentally went through everything he had packed to see if he had forgotten anything. Once, he had forgotten his toothbrush and had ended up going to the convenience store of the nearby hospital in the middle of the night.  
“Why not?” Yura asked. “Are you afraid of what people will think? Because that’s no one’s business. Two guys living together isn’t a crime.”  
He grimaced because he generally appreciated that she cared so much. But lately, she always came to the conclusion that all issues had the same root cause. It was easier for her to think that his psychotic episode as a teenager had been due to him being madly in love with his best friend who had committed suicide, and not because that friend had started to haunt him after his death. She couldn’t see ghosts, so she would think that he had lost his mind if he told her the truth. But while Baekhyun’s death could be explained by the suffocating pressure of society, everything around Kim Minseok couldn’t. It was not about what anyone else thought.  
“That’s not the problem,” he said.  
She folded her arms in front of her chest. He honestly wondered why she needed him out of the house so badly. He paid rent to their parents, so it was not like he didn’t contribute.  
“Umma and appa probably won’t oppose either. They don’t know how to talk to him but that doesn’t mean that they don’t like him,” she said and reminded him of that one failed dinner he had invited Minseok to before. Over a year had passed since then. As someone who knew them all, he understood that they had all tried their best. His father had tried to find common ground and had ended up talking about sports and the economy while Minseok had looked confused because he cared about neither. His mother had made too much food and had constantly urged Chanyeol to tell Minseok to eat more, which had ended up in Minseok clearly overeating out of politeness. Yura meanwhile had been overly curious which had led to a few very tense minutes after Minseok had told her that he didn’t know who his father was and that his mother had passed away when he had been young. He had not elaborated on any of the details but to Chanyeol’s middle-class family that had already been problematic enough. It was hard to look at the less fortunate.  
“I’m pretty sure they don’t like him,” Baekhyun said and put his head through the wall because he probably got bored with the discussion.  
“I know,” Chanyeol said. He just wanted to leave it at that and walk away. But Yura was persistent. She had left him alone for years but now that he himself didn’t think he needed help anymore, she meddled more and more. “It’s not about them. Or anyone else for that matter. I’m just not sure if there is enough space for me in his life.”  
Once the words were out, the atmosphere immediately felt heavier. Baekhyun chose the moment to disappear through the door.  
Yura looked at him with pity that rubbed him the wrong way. That was exactly why he didn’t want to talk to her about these things. Before she could say anything stupid that she thought was comforting, he said, “It’s not a big deal. Things are fine the way they are.”  
She sighed but didn’t immediately reply. He shouldered his bag and opened the door when she said, “Just try not to get hurt.”

The truth was that he was not really sure if they would be fine. It was the thing he had worried about from the start. They had not met as two regular people living regular lives, so their relationship was not ordinary either.  
Chanyeol still worked in the bike shop and had a fixed daily rhythm with few variations. He ate dinner with his family for at least half the week and occasionally had a drink with colleagues. His life seemed normal from the outside but he was still swarmed with ghosts. The more detached Baekhyun became from him, the more other ghosts he saw. Most of them were quiet but many chatted him up when they noticed him looking at them. Minseok had given him protective charms and had taught him the basics of summoning but that in return often still put them in the awkward position of mentor and trainee. Chanyeol was new in Minseok’s world and Minseok didn’t understand Chanyeol’s. It caused constant imbalance.  
Minseok was not part of the Office anymore but summoning was all he knew. So rather than to completely rebuild his life, he had started to work with the scraps he still had. Shortly after leaving the Office, he had gotten in contact with Oh Sehun, another former Office member and grandson of a shaman who had pointed him into the direction of people who could help him stand on his own feet. Rather than to deal with possessions with the backup of a huge organization, Minseok now worked freelance and dealt with hauntings because that was a field the Office didn’t bother with.  
“The rules in the Office are dictated by ghosts, so it’s in their interests if they don’t properly teach summoners about hauntings,” Minseok had once explained when Chanyeol had questioned that decision. “But there are people who suffer because they are haunted. I can’t just ignore them when I know that I can help.”  
They had been in a restaurant and not in his secure apartment, so he had looked at Baekhyun who had floated around a group of high school students a few tables down. He always wore his school uniform, so he had almost blended in.  
Chanyeol had not really known what to reply. He had suffered because of Baekhyun. But that didn’t mean that he wanted Baekhyun to be killed. Ghosts had been people, too.  
But Minseok was on a mission. It sometimes felt as if he was with a saint while Chanyeol was a mere mortal. Minseok saved the innocent, and he repaired bikes.

“What are your plans for the weekend?” Baekhyun asked when Chanyeol reached the station. This was where they usually parted ways. Baekhyun didn’t like public transport.  
Chanyeol shrugged. “Not sure. Minseok-sshi has to work tomorrow afternoon, so I might be home on Sunday.”  
Baekhyun swayed a little and looked at a spot in the distance. “Yeah?” he asked and sounded as if he had not heard a single word. “That’s cool. See you on Monday then.”  
He left as if they still were classmates saying goodbye for the weekend. For a short while, they could pretend that life was easy fun until the reality of the world caught up to them.  
Chanyeol didn’t like to admit it because he knew it wasn’t right but sometimes he missed Baekhyun’s permanent presence. Even if it had been cold, even if he had constantly egged him on, Baekhyun had at least only ever cared about him. It was selfish. He knew it was selfish, so he tried to tuck the feeling away. But once in a while, it broke to the surface like a bubble of sulfur.

\- together alone -

“Jongdae-yah,” the lady in the kiosk in front of his house yelled and waved him over. He couldn’t remember how she knew his name. Sometimes it felt as if she had known him forever and as if it was completely normal that the owner of a kiosk treated him like a relative.  
“Did you get your hair done?” he asked and pointed at his own head to mimic the perm on hers. He was glad that he was born as a man and could simply go bald as an old man. “You look younger every time I see you.”  
She slapped his arm with a chuckle but then immediately became serious. “Jongdae-yah, I really hate to tell you this,” she said with the sad expression of someone who knew exactly what kind of effect her words had on ‘nice young men’ like Jongdae. “But your cousin keeps telling me to put his purchases on his tab and then never comes back to pay.”  
Jongdae pulled a face. He was beginning to really hate this cousin story. It was another lie that had snowballed and now neighbors he had always gotten along with just fine, constantly told him about all the offensive things his supposed cousin had said and done to them. The only reason why there even was a tab, probably was that the kiosk owner knew exactly that she could just make Jongdae pay instead. He was, as she had told him before when she had tried to set him up with her niece, perfect son-in-law material after all.  
“How much does he owe you?” Jongdae asked and opened his backpack to fumble for his wallet. He almost dropped a report Yixing had sent him from Gwangju in the process.  
“Oh, you don’t have to,” the woman said.  
“That’s fine. I’ll just make him pay me back. We’re family after all,” he said because he did not want her to start badmouthing him. Neighbors could be the nicest people on earth or his worst enemies. They didn’t question him sharing his apartment with a ‘cousin’ because they liked him and he preferred it to be that way. If his parents ever came to visit him, he didn’t want anyone to complain to them about all the boys in their family being rude.  
“It’s really not that much,” the woman said but already pulled a note out of her pocket. There were no proper receipts attached to it. It was just a long collection of handwritten scribbles. “76,500 won in total.”  
That way, Jongdae lost over half the money he had only just withdrawn at the bank on his way home.

“Next week you’ll pay for all the groceries,” Jongdae said and put his backpack on one of the kitchen chairs.  
Jongin didn’t look up from his laptop. There was a pile of documents scattered over the table, so he had probably not eaten yet. Despite all his other flaws, he was definitely serious about work. As the new Number One summoner in Seoul after Minseok had left, Jongin often was sent all over the city. In consequence, he had made it a habit to bring his reports home rather than to return to the office of the Eastern branch after summonings outside his usual area.  
Jongdae had almost expected him not to be home yet because the kiosk owner had approached him instead. But if she had to choose one person to collect her debts, the choice probably was clear.  
“Why?” Jongin asked.  
“I just paid for two months worth of,” Jongdae looked at the handwritten note, “beer, dried squid, salted peanuts, potato chips, pork rinds, corn snacks, custard tarts, more beer and condoms, all of which are products you allegedly bought for your own consumption.”  
Jongin didn’t bat an eyelid. “Pretty sure you profited from the condoms, too.”  
Jongdae attempted to throw the note at him but it only sailed through the air and ended up on the floor. “Right. Sure. I can waive 20% of the price for those but the rest is still enough for a week’s worth of groceries. Thinking about it, I should actually also charge you for the trash bags and the manpower it took to dispose of your junk. This isn’t a hotel.”  
Jongin finally looked up and cracked a smile. It was an unfair advantage he had. Jongin had the kind of effortlessly cool face that would have made him perfect as a model for luxury watches or sports cars. It screamed ENTITLEMENT and ELITISM at unsuspecting viewers. But when he smiled, it was a whole different matter. When he smiled, he looked like a puppy. It was a weapon he himself didn’t seem to realize he wielded.  
“Why just 20% though?” he asked. “100 divided by two is 50.”  
“That’s if you assume that only two people were involved. I kind of doubt that,” Jongdae said and immediately regretted it. It was meant as a joke but the smile froze on Jongin’s face. Their cohabitation was not a serious matter and words that could be misinterpreted as jealousy would only make it awkward. Jongin’s life was none of Jongdae’s business as long as Jongin paid his share of the rent and did not create debts with more neighbors.  
“I can buy groceries next week,” Jongin said as though that was the natural course of the conversation and turned back to his laptop screen. “There’s been a lack of meat in this house lately anyway.”  
Jongdae felt his eyes rolling back in his head but was thankful for the shift in tone. “If you keep eating nothing but meat, you’ll just get constipated. And if you keep being constipated, you’ll end up getting hemorrhoids.” He took Yixing’s report from his bag and put it on the table in order not to forget about it. He was not going to do any serious work that evening but reading wouldn’t hurt. “Have you eaten?”  
Jongin scoffed. “Why, can you determine when the hemorrhoids will get me if you know my diet in detail?”  
Jongdae shrugged. “I just want to know if I should prepare ramyun for two.”  
Jongin leaned back in his chair as if the question needed some consideration. He had probably come home after a summoning, still overwhelmed by ghostly memories and had immediately hacked away at his keyboards. He was the epitome of work-related overzealousness. “I’m starving,” he said after a long pause.  
Jongdae nodded because he had expected that and had already mentally gone through the contents of the fridge. “I’m on it.”

It was an odd kind of balance they struck. When it came down to it, they were not really much to each other.  
Their neighbors thought they were cousins because their names were so similar. Kim Jongdae was the brother of Kim Jongdeok, as well as the cousin of Kim Jongsuk, Kim Jonghyuk, Kim Jonghwan, Kim Jongsoo and Kim Jongsup. His family took generational names very seriously and if there had been more boys, there probably would have been a Kim Jongin eventually. That was what made the lie so ingenious.  
At work meanwhile, they simply were colleagues from different offices who rarely met officially. Jongdae worked for the Northern branch, Jongin for the Eastern. They probably would have never properly met if not for Minseok leaving and Jongin having to make up for him.  
Two years ago, after Yixing had gotten possessed and caused a huge ruckus, there had been several ghosts who had become unusually strong after having possessed a summoner. Jongin had been tasked to hunt them down and Jongdae had been tasked to assist him because Junmyeon had been busy taking care of the whole administrative stuff. They had lost both Minseok and Yixing, so the workload had been overwhelming.  
Jongin had been rude then, so Jongdae had mainly been angry at being stuck with him. Jongin was more senior but Jongdae older, so they had addressed each other informally and had permanently offended each other in the process.  
At one point, Luhan had been transferred from the Western branch and things had calmed down a little. Luhan was one of the ancient summoners, so there had been a couple of things he had been able to take care of a little quicker than Junmyeon.  
“Don’t let Jongin seduce you,” Luhan had said during the dinner party to celebrate him joining their office and Jongdae had laughed awkwardly because he had been drunk. He had drunk a lot during that time. That was probably how a lot of things had happened.  
He had not technically been seduced. He had been dragged into a fight that had escalated. He had been angry, Jongin had been annoyed. It had started with snarky comments and late-night drink sessions and had led to very angry make-outs. That they lived together was not more than an accident. Jongin’s apartment had burned down, Jongdae had offered his couch and at some point, they had started to share the rent.  
The whole thing had initially surprised Jongdae. He had been vaguely attracted to guys before, enough to know that it probably was part of his identity, but he had never expected to act on it. As a teenager, he had seen himself with a wife and three kids. After his brother’s death, he had hoped to at least meet a girl who didn’t think of him as crazy.  
But now he wondered if it wasn’t also perfectly fine to just live with a guy who knew about his job and didn’t expect anything serious from him.

“What happened to the eggs?” Jongdae asked when he had already put the noodles in the pot. Ramyun without eggs made no sense.  
“Ate them this morning,” Jongin said, not the least bit apologetic. Once he got his eggless ramyun, he would probably complain as if it had nothing to do with him. Jongdae wondered if there was a way to take petty revenge, and then simply closed the fridge to add more noodles.


	2. anniversaries

\- celebration -

“If your sister refuses to leave on her own, you will have to decide,” Minseok said and didn’t take his eyes off the ghost that flickered in the corner of a room like a candle in a windy night. The shape moved in accordance with the sobs of the woman who sat on a couch in her small living room. “You can continue to live with her and hope for the best. Or you give me permission to get rid of her for good.”  
The woman looked at him with wide eyes. “What do you mean, for good?”  
She clearly was attached to the ghost of her sister. If not, she would have been haunted in the first place. There was a multitude of reasons for ghosts to stay on earth. Some didn’t understand that they were dead, others still felt that there were things they needed to do. But when a ghost haunted a person, there usually was a strong emotional connection. That was why many people who could see ghosts started as the victims of hauntings.  
“I can’t force her to ascend if she refuses,” he said. “If you want me to make sure that she will never return, I need to end her existence.”  
The woman frowned and looked around. She couldn’t see her sister but sometimes heard whispers. If this continued, there was a chance that she would eventually be approached by the Office. He couldn’t risk that but needed her to agree first.  
“So what you’re saying is that Heaven is real?” she asked in confusion. He had seen a cross in the entrance hall, so he assumed her to be Christian. That could complicate things and turn this into a moral debate. But he didn’t want to lie.  
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what happens when a ghost ascends because they never come back. I only know that they go somewhere. If you want me to take care of her, she goes nowhere. She vanishes.”  
“I can’t do that to her,” the woman said. More sobs broke out of her. The ghost floated closer to her and lightly touched her shoulder. The woman flinched and stared at the air her sister occupied in horror.  
“She will probably kill you and your family if you leave her be,” Minseok said.  
The woman put her hand on her heart. She had only just survived a heart attack but was much too young for that to be normal. Her young son was in the hospital because he had been hit by a car. Her husband had broken down at work. All of these things had happened in the span of two months. At the Office, Minseok had always been asked to stay away from hauntings, so he still didn’t fully understand the mechanics behind it. But he knew that these things would have been caused by the ghost leeching off them.  
“I will never hurt them. Stop feeding her lies!” the ghost yelled with a voice like police sirens on a winter day. She charged at him, so he jumped up and caught her mid-flight. His hand was already inside her torso when he fully managed to take hold of her. She stretched into different directions and screamed when she realized that she was stuck.  
The woman stared at him. He doubted that she saw anything but there was a chance that she heard her sister. “Is there no other way?” she asked.  
“None that I know of. Unless you want to flee the country,” he said.  
She looked down at her hands. “Will she suffer?”  
“No. She’s not alive anymore. She can’t feel anything,” he said while the ghost screeched into his ear. He didn’t actually know what it would be like for the ghost. All his life, he had been told that ghosts were empty. But he still sometimes woke up when the last cries of his mother filled his nightmares. He would never find out what it had been like for her. He could only believe what they had told him. That ghosts were nothing but shadows of the living.  
“And all of this will end?” the woman asked in a barely audible voice. She sounded ashamed.  
The ghosts flickered and stretched into her direction. “Soyoung-ah,” she said. “Soyoung-ah, what are you saying? Soyoung-ah, I will be good. I will not hurt you. I can make it right.”  
Minseok tightened his grip and she snapped back.  
“All of this will end,” he said.  
The woman nodded and the ghosts howled when disintegrated like a shadow on a sunny day. At first, she became more and more translucent. Then, her edges slowly frayed.

There still was a lot Minseok didn’t understand and there were times when he wished he had not been cut off from the Office archives. He could not accept what the Office stood for and how new summoner candidates were treated but left to his own devices, he often felt as though he fought windmills. There was no system in what he did. Thanks to Sehun’s connections, he was connected with people who believed they were haunted but since he needed the money, he could only help those who were willing to pay.  
Hauntings were not more difficult than possessions because the system was the same. But unlike possessions that were closely monitored, hauntings were epidemic. It was hard not to feel overwhelmed whenever he thought about all the people who did not realize what happened to them and who slowly withered away because they were ignored by the Office.

He was tired and his arm still felt a little numb from the ghost squirming against his bones when he rounded the corner to his house. The haunted woman had lived so far outside the city that it had taken hours to return to the center by bus. It already was late, so the first drunk people staggered around the streets. He could feel Byun Baekhyun before he saw him, so he quickened his pace. He had argued with enough ghosts for that day.  
“Just a quick note,” Byun Baekhyun said and appeared right in front of him. Minseok considered marching through him but instead swerved around. Byun Baekhyun made a disgruntled noise.  
“Chanyeol is still in your apartment, so you might want to think about what day it is in about an hour,” Byun Baekhyun said and moved parallelly to him. When Minseok had met him for the first time, he had usually walked like a person but lately, Byun Baekhyun had made it a habit to float like a ghost.  
He stopped. It was a trick question. “Sunday,” he said.  
Byun Baekhyun pulled a grimace that fully distorted his features. “I knew it. You really are a moron. You didn’t prepare anything at all, did you?”  
Minseok furrowed his brows. He didn’t want to fall into any traps but looked at his watch. It was still Saturday. Just a regular Saturday in November.  
November.  
“Shit,” he said and swerved around but didn’t know where to go. Most stores were closed. He had never celebrated his own birthday, so it was a concept he still wasn’t used to. He could understand national holidays because the numbers of possessions tended to spike on them. That was all he had ever bothered to think about. But Chanyeol was normal. To him, these things mattered.  
“I checked and they have small cakes at the convenience store next to the police station,” Byun Baekhyun said. “Also, he likes seaweed soup with beef but if you make it with canned tuna, that should be okay, too. It’s probably too late to buy beef. All the supermarkets around close early.”  
Minseok didn’t reply as he waited at the intersection leading to the police station. He hated these situations when Byun Baekhyun appeared in front of him to lecture him. Even if he left them alone most of the time, he still regularly returned to remind Minseok that he still was an important figure in Chanyeol’s life.

Minseok bought the cake Byun Baekhyun told him to buy and was lectured on how Chanyeol’s mother prepared her seaweed soup while he stood at the registry and waited for the cashier to pack up his purchases.  
“Oh, wait, do you have any liquor at home?” Byun Baekhyun asked when Minseok already stepped outside. So he went back inside and bought the soju Byun Baekhyun pointed at.  
There was nothing he could say. He had memory fragments of the nearly twenty years of Chanyeol’s friendship with Byun Baekhyun, so he knew that all the suggestions would be accurate. No one else knew him as well as his companion.  
“This would be easier if I was alive,” Byun Baekhyun said when Minseok had to return a third time to buy candles.  
Minseok was exhausted, so he asked, “Do you think he would be happier if you took my place?” He didn’t mean to snap. There was no point in snapping. But he was sick of those small comments. They both knew that it was possible for a ghost to steal the body of a living person. If not for him, his mother would probably still be alive and live the life of a stranger. Byun Baekhyun knew that. Because he knew that, he kept mentioning it, as if Minseok was just a tool he could use. It was completely different from the tone he had had when he had begged him to save Chanyeol from himself two years earlier.  
Byun Baekhyun’s features became more pronounced, as if Minseok saw him through binoculars brought into sharper focus. “Do you think he will be happier if you keep forgetting about his birthday? This already happened once. You weren’t there when he moped around the week after that.”  
Minseok averted his gaze and continued his way back home. The bags were heavy and shook in the cold night breeze. Byun Baekhyun followed him until the entrance of the building.  
“Don’t mess this up,” he said and finally disappeared. Minseok took a deep breath. And continued to live the life that had been taken from Byun Baekhyun.

\- boundaries -

Jongin picked up a report at the printer when his co-worker Sohee strolled up to him with a coffee mug in her hand. “I met someone on the weekend,” she said.  
It sounded like the beginning of a long story, so he turned away and said, “That’s nice.”  
He walked back to his desk but Sohee was not easily deterred. His only option was to not pay attention and hope that she would give up. Tao’s desk was next to his and although he was currently at the coffee shop downstairs to get himself breakfast, he would be back eventually. Tao enjoyed gossip talk a lot more than Jongin, so there was a chance that he would take over.  
“It was a blind date,” Sohee said and sat down on Tao’s desk chair while Jongin put the report into a folder. “He is a widower, which frankly didn’t bother me, but when I told him that I work as a psychic he kept asking me if I could contact his dead wife. That put me off a little.”  
Jongin didn’t mean to take the bait. Sohee had a habit of telling him the most outrageous things. He suspected that she did it on purpose. Even if all of her dates ended horribly, people would at least still listen to her stories.  
“Why would you pretend to be a psychic anyway?” he asked.  
There was a twinkle in her eyes. She clearly realized that she had hooked him and that he had no choice but to listen now. “Well, I can’t tell anyone about the Office, can I? If I say that I’m a psychic, that’s frankly the best explanation. Whatever they think, if I accidentally talk about ghosts, they won’t be surprised. If they don’t want to talk to someone who believes in ghosts, they won’t date a psychic.”  
Jongin had to admit that it made sense. Sohee was nearly old enough to be his mother and had never married, so guys would find her strange to begin with. She also had the crazy middle-aged lady look that would have made sense for a psychic. What mainly surprised him was that she knew herself so well. She had always struck him as a little delusional.  
“Anyway, that’s actually not what I wanted to talk about,” she said after a long sip of her mug. “He was still a very nice man, so it was not a completely wasted evening. Also, he told me about his son who only just started working for a big architect office. He only just outed himself, so now his father is concerned that he will stay single because he works so much.”  
She took her phone out of the pocket of her cardigan and Jongin turned back to his computer. “I’m not interested.” A few years earlier he had given in once and had allowed her to arrange a date for him with a neighbor’s friend’s nephew. The guy had been a lot older than him and had smelled as if he had brushed his teeth with garlic. Jongin was not always picky about casual hook-ups but that had been impossible even for him.  
Sohee slapped his arm. “You should at least look at what you say no to.”  
She held her phone in front of his face but even if he had wanted to, he wouldn’t have seen anything because it was too close. He pushed her arm away and planned to just ignore it. He didn’t even want to see the face of a guy whose father asked a blind date to set him up with someone. But then he caught a glimpse and maneuvered her arm so that he could have a proper look.  
“See, that was exactly my reaction,” Sohee said happily.  
The son was, as Jongin had to admit, hot. He didn’t seem much older than Jongin but had the rugged look of an academic who wanted to change the world. Under normal circumstances, Jongin probably would have considered meeting him and breaking his heart. Instead, he said, “Still not interested though.”  
He turned to put the report on a pile and nearly jumped off his seat in surprise when Sohee leaned forward and put her hand on his forehead. “Jongin-ah, are you sick?” she asked. “Or have you turned blind?” She waved her hand in front of his face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”  
Jongin moved his chair back to flee her grasp. He was grateful when Tao chose that moment to appear behind her. “Noona, that’s my seat.”  
Sohee swirled around to him but didn’t get up. “Tao-yah,” she said dramatically. “I think there’s reason to believe that Jongin has been possessed by a straight man.”  
Jongin grimaced. Tao looked at him with a blank expression. It was never apparent from the start in which direction Tao would sway. Sometimes he jumped on the bandwagon of stupid conversations, sometimes he was completely oblivious. Tao himself liked to explain it with the language barrier.  
“Have you moved?” he asked Jongin completely out of context. Sohee showed her disapproval by sighing. “I walked by your house the other day and it was gone.”  
“Doesn’t that make it obvious that I moved?” Jongin asked.  
“What do you mean, it was gone?” Sohee asked and immediately switched back to her motherly mode. Jongin was not sure he liked that more than her teasing him. They were colleagues. He didn’t need any of them to meddle with his private life. When he had found a cheap apartment close to the office a few years ago, he had originally been glad. But after it had become apparent how annoying it was to have colleagues know where he lived, he had considered moving anyway.  
“It burned down,” Jongin said. “I’m crashing on a friend’s couch for the moment.”  
Tao nodded because that had apparently fulfilled his curiosity. But Sohee’s eyes widened in shock. She looked him up and down as though to check that he didn’t currently burn. Then, she narrowed her eyes at him.  
“Is that friend the reason why you don’t want to meet the architect?” she asked.  
“No,” he said.  
It was not supposed to be a lie. He had no time to go on blind dates. As long as all the difficult summonings in and around Seoul were assigned to him and as long as he had to hurry around the city all day, he didn’t have the energy to hook up with a smart guy. Jongin knew he could usually pass with his looks alone but he had not even graduated high school, so it was still exhausting to talk to educated people who automatically looked down on him for his lack of pedigree.  
But deep down he knew that it was nothing but an excuse. He had years of pretending to be someone he wasn’t. If he had really wanted to, he could have easily continued that way. But it was more comfortable to just stick to the friend on whose couch he crashed. That friend never asked unnecessary questions and respected boundaries. Most guys ultimately had expectations Jongin couldn’t fulfill. He was not going to be in a serious relationship. He was not going to make plans for the future or celebrate anniversaries or pick out furniture or console grown men when they were sad. It was not that he enjoyed being alone. He just didn’t like to be tied. With Jongdae he always felt as though that was good enough.  
Sohee looked as though she wanted to ask more questions but Tao put his hands on the headrest of his chair and said, “Noona, you’re still in my seat.”

When he opened the apartment door, he was met with a chemical smell that made him dizzy. He immediately expected the worst. One thing he had figured out rather quickly was that, when Jongdae was upset, he did housework. Minor annoyances led to an array of dishes that look as though he had thrown them on the ground before serving them. Major grievances led to cleaning. Judging by the smell, Jongin was about to run into the latter.  
It was too late to leave, so he cautiously entered the kitchen and mentally went through a list of things that he might have been responsible for. Had he eaten anything he wasn’t supposed to eat? Had he clogged the toilet? Was there another neighbor he owed money to? He had no idea.  
But then he noticed the flowers on the kitchen counter. White lilies, still in their plastic wrapping, were put in a plastic bucket with water. They were obviously not meant for anyone alive. Jongdae wasn’t from Seoul, so he would not have any family members buried there. The flowers would be for his brother’s death anniversary.  
Jongin sighed because there was not much he could do. He wasn’t even supposed to know about it because neither of them ever mentioned how they had become summoners. Personal files were confidential for most Office employees but Jongin had been granted one of the highest security levels, so there were a few files he had access to. Before he had started to work with the other offices in the city, he had looked at all files that had been available for him in order to know what kind of personalities he would find himself confronted with. Jongdae was, for all sakes and purposes, a very average summoner. He wasn’t brilliant at summoning but he also wasn’t so damaged that he would be held back permanently. If everything went well for him, he had a shot at leading an Office branch in a few years. But while that meant that his career looked bright, he would still have his own burden to carry.  
“I didn’t hear you come in,” Jongdae said behind him and Jongin jumped in surprise.  
Jongdae looked considerably normal. He wore rolled-up sweatpants and rubber slippers and peeled off long rubber gloves he threw into the kitchen sink. His hair stuck up because he had probably touched it with the wet gloves at one point. But then he asked, “How was your day?”  
It was not that the question itself was unusual. Jongdae was the considerate kind of person who was genuinely interested in the wellbeing of the people around him. But this time it sounded like an automatism, as if he needed to fill the silence around him with words. It was the same principle as the one behind people who had their TV running all day.  
Jongdae threw him a concerned look and Jongin realized that he had neglected to respond in time.  
There were things he wanted to say in consolation. There were things he wanted to do. But all of those would have been a step in the wrong direction. So instead he said, “Yang Sohee from my office tried to set me up with someone today.”  
Jongdae angled his head as though he couldn’t immediately process the words. “What kind of someone?”  
Jongin shrugged. “The son of a guy she went on a date with. He’s a hot architect.”  
For a second, Jongdae’s face was blank. It was a terrifying moment. Then he cracked a smile and turned back to the sink as if this was not more than a discussion between regular roommates. “You sure it’s not a scam? That sounds like you’re being catfished. What kind of hot architect has their father set up dates for them?”  
“No idea,” Jongin said and tried to sound casual. “That’s for me to find out I guess. Even if he’s weird, he will at least have money. I’ve hooked up with worse.”  
Jongdae didn’t immediately reply. He rinsed the rubber gloves with water and then put them next to the sink to dry. “If he wants to give you presents, ask for food. Or liquor.”  
“You think I’d share my expensive bottle of wine with you?” Jongin asked and unwillingly laughed because he imagined it. It would make him the modern Hong Gildong. Take things from the rich and share them with the poor.  
“I’m not saying that you have to but I think it would be fair if you consider that you steal a lot of my food,” Jongdae said and rolled down his pant legs before he walked to the bedroom.  
“If you don’t want me to eat your food, don’t buy things I like,” Jongin said.  
“Those are bold words coming from a walking trash can. There’s nothing you don’t like to eat,” Jongdae said when he was already in the room. He normally left all doors open. But this time he closed it behind him.  
Jongin sighed and rubbed the back of his head.  
There would always be a distance between them. He needed there to be a distance.  
But lately, he sometimes found himself frustrated because of it. Sometimes he wanted to reach out although he knew that he wasn’t supposed to.


	3. internal affairs

\- lessons learned -

Yifan had been twenty when the Office had found him. A whole decade had gone by since then but he had never really thought about it in numbers. Ten years were only a third of his life but the twenty years before that paled in comparison.  
What he had learned during that time was that every place could be his place if only he used the existing rules to his advantage. Over the years he had met a couple of summoners who were dissatisfied with various internal rules. Some complained about the payment or the seemingly random transfers, others about the unequal distribution of promotions. A few years ago, a fellow Chinese who had also been transferred to Korea for his own protection, had caused an issue when he had allowed himself to become possessed multiple times. In his report he had explained it with the lack of advancement. He had not been able to accept his own limits.  
“You’re lucky because you’re mediocre, Wu Yifan,” Luhan, another Chinese who had belonged to the same branch as him for years, had once said. “Only the mediocre have a real chance here.”  
Luhan had always had a habit of thinking in categories. According to him, trauma could either be positive or negative. Whatever had happened to him was negative because it would have involved a close family member. Yifan watching two of his friends bleed to death at a roadside at night was positive. It had not damaged him too much, as Luhan liked to say.  
After having listened to that theory for too long, Yifan had gotten sick of it that he had been glad when Luhan had finally been transferred elsewhere. But he did agree that summoners were different and that not everyone was able to do the same things. Luhan himself for example arguably was a better summoner than him. He could see ghosts more clearly and was better at showing empathy. But Luhan had never appreciated that and had been blind to the fact that Yifan had probably been put in charge of the trainees because a lot of his summonings had failed, and not because he was a better mentor on principle. Once, he thought he had summoned a ghost, only to be told afterward that it had hidden deep in the host. Luhan had been able to tell right away but Yifan had walked away feeling proud of himself like an idiot.  
It really only was a matter of being resourceful. Yifan was put in charge of a lot of things because he had learned to accept his limitations. And because he understood his limitations, he still occasionally got nervous whenever he was supposed to do a summoning on his own.

He had never been to that neighborhood that seemed to consist of endless rows of small houses on steep slopes, so he looked at the map on his phone when he rounded a corner and ran into a passerby. His phone and the guy flew to the ground but Yifan managed to hold onto a lamppost.  
“Shit, sorry,” he said as he picked up his phone and then held out his hand to the guy who rubbed his head. “Are you okay?”  
Kim Minseok looked up to him in surprise and Yifan automatically withdrew his hand. If Luhan was annoying in his open envy of Yifan’s mediocreness, Yifan’s envy of the real stars of the Office was like poison in his veins. Even though Minseok had left the organization, his name was still found everywhere. There were security protocols, emergency contact lists that hadn’t been updated, email histories, and fifteen years' worth of reports. A lot of internal processes led to the same instruction: Consult Kim Minseok. When that very Kim Minseok had decided to leave, no one had stopped him because no one had been able to.  
“I hope you’re not here for the summoning in the apartment above the dry-cleaner’s,” Yifan said. That was how a Nameless One had described the location.  
Minseok stood up and brushed the dirt off his pants. Yifan had almost forgotten how small he was. Minseok’s reputation was larger than life but in person, he was just a short guy who looked confused. “I was told by the family that it’s a haunting,” he said.  
Yifan had heard about that. Minseok now specialized in hauntings. It was an uncomfortable topic because there were special rules on those within the Office. Most hauntings were to be ignored. If a summoner was impaired by a ghost following them, the summoner was to be moved because that was believed to be the best way to make the ghost leave. But Minseok had stopped caring about those rules.  
“It technically is,” Yifan said and considered how much he was going to say. If Minseok was here anyway, there maybe was a way for Yifan to spin this in his favor. “The ghosts of twin brothers haunt the family. One started possessing a third brother who is still alive. The family doesn’t realize that he’s possessed because he’s still young.”  
Minseok looked perplexed for a moment. Then he narrowed his eyes. “I assume there’s a reason why you’re telling me that.”  
Yifan shrugged. “The way I see it, we have the same destination. I’m not going to punch you to stop you, so I’m sure we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement.”  
Minseok grimaced. “You give me the legitimacy of the Office to do a summoning and you won’t have to get your hands dirty?”  
Yifan snapped his fingers and opened the map on his phone to continue his way towards the house. “You’re catching on quickly. Let’s not waste time then.”  
Minseok didn’t immediately follow but there was not much else for him to do. Unlike Yifan, he would have to rely on commission fees. He could come back after Yifan had dealt with the family but by then they might not find him all that trustworthy anymore. Yifan also had to go first because there was a chance that the summoned ghost would immediately go back to haunting. There weren’t any alternatives.  
Yifan was already at the next crossroad when he heard Minseok’s quick steps behind him.

It had been a while since Yifan had seen Minseok summon, so he was surprised at how messy a process it was. They met the mother who held her infant son in her arms at the door. There was a halo of a somewhat bigger child around the son. He stared at them with watchful eyes that didn’t belong to someone his age.  
Yifan introduced himself as Minseok’s associate and gave the woman a quick overview of the situation. She swallowed hard as she looked at her child. Minseok seemed about to explain exactly what he would do to the ghosts but Yifan interrupted him. Mothers were sentimental. She would hardly agree if she found out that she would rob their children of the opportunity to be reincarnated if they refused to leave.  
Minseok then proceeded to pull the ghost out of the child that was still in his mother’s arms. The child screamed and kicked and Yifan tried to find soothing words that would prevent the mother from freaking. Luckily enough, the summoning part turned out to work smoothly. Minseok got the ghost out in one piece. The ghost and his little twin brother looked at him in reproach and tried to get back inside their brother, so Yifan quickly put a charm around the infant’s neck.  
After that, things escalated.  
Both twins charged at Minseok who caught one and slammed him on the ground.  
“What is happening?” the mother asked. Yifan held onto her shoulder. The infant cried.  
The other ghost was at Minseok’s head. Nothing should have happened then. The worst thing a ghost could do to a living person was to possess them and he would not be able to do that to Minseok. Everything else was just a matter of temperature fluctuations and long-term psychological effects. When people said that ghosts opened doors and moved things, there always were other explanations. Ghosts weren’t physical beings. But when both ghosts were at his throat, Minseok suddenly yelped and stumbled into a shelf. A basket with yarn cluttered to the floor. There was blood. The mother shrieked and turned away.  
Minseok was angry now and took hold of both twins. He had one by the ankle and the other tucked under his arm. They howled and screeched and Yifan fought the urge to put his hands over his ears. He had never heards sounds like that. He knew that the ghosts were gone when the room suddenly seemed brighter.  
He had almost forgotten about it. This was what made him mediocre. It was not something he wanted for himself.

“Can they touch you because you can touch them?” Yifang asked and looked at Minseok who still pressed a tissue to the side of his neck. It wasn’t a deep cut but continued bleeding  
It had taken some maneuvering to get the woman to calm down and actually pay Minseok. Yifang had done more than a fair share of the work in that regard but was not going to complain. It wouldn’t have felt right to rob a hurt man. He also couldn’t know for sure what would have happened if the ghosts had targeted him instead.  
“I’m not sure,” Minseok said. He stared at the street as though he could force the bus to arrive quicker that way. He was going to catch a different bus line and Yifang knew that he was supposed to take it personally. Yifang was the enemy now.  
“Ghosts can’t touch people,” he said. He mainly said it to make himself feel better. The evidence spoke against that theory.  
“Normal ghosts can’t,” Minseok said and sounded absent-minded. Yifang furrowed his brows. He couldn’t follow. Even if he wasn’t a great summoner, he wasn’t exactly an amateur either. But in the company of Minseok, he felt as if he had learned nothing in his ten years.  
“What do you know about hauntings?” Minseok asked, his eyes still on the street.  
Yifan thought about it. Part of him wanted to answer that he was, in fact, quite knowledgeable on that subject. But he knew that he couldn’t bullshit his way through life. He always told his trainees to admit when there was something they didn’t understand. No one was infallible.  
“Not much,” he said.  
Minseok nodded. “Because no one taught you. Summoners are trained by their predecessors who teach them everything they learned to be necessary. You focus on possessions, so you think that it’s all you need to know. Your colleagues tell you about possessions. Most reports describe possessions. Meetings are about possessions. That way, you lose sight of everything else.”  
Yifang wanted to protest because it all was a matter of perspective. Hauntings were not as severe as possessions and they lacked the manpower to deal with every single ghost-related incident. That was what the rules were for. There would always be more ghosts than summoners.  
“I’ve seen ghosts for thirty years,” Minseok said. Yifan blinked because he couldn’t immediately process the number. He had believed him and Minseok to be the same age. If he was thirty, Minseok would have seen ghosts from the start. It was one of those personal information no one talked about because they hid a sad story. “But after thirty years, I still can’t explain why I’m bleeding because of one of them.”  
Yifang sighed. He didn’t understand and he didn’t think he had to. He wasn’t like Minseok. He was not supposed to be brilliant. His job was to train the next generation.  
It was mainly to change the topic that he asked, “What happened to your trainee anyway?”  
Minseok finally turned his head to look at him. Yifan had not really expected a reaction.  
“He had a companion, right?” he added. “I was told to take care of him if he ever comes back but he never did.”  
Minseok’s expression darkened. “He’s fine.”

\- comparisons -

“You’re much too used to Minseok taking care of all your problems,” Luhan said in annoyance, just when Jongdae came back from a neighborhood round. He had the world’s worst timing. Luhan had already seen him, so he couldn’t just leave now. He tried to be as unobtrusive as possible when he walked to his desk and took his scarf off his neck.  
Luhan turned back to Junmyeon, “You can’t just call Kim Jongin every time you’re a little inconvenienced.”  
Jongdae immediately halted and then tried to act normal when he sat down and started his computer. No one knew about them living together and he didn’t want to be responsible for any rumors. But this still was about a guy who paid almost half the rent of Jongdae’s apartment.  
“That kid is already running at full speed,” Luhan said. “Sure, he’s experienced. Yes, he can find connections to ghosts other people can’t. But he’s not Minseok. He can’t just blast ghosts into nowhere. He has to do the exact same things you do during a summoning. Before you ask him and risk that he hits his breaking point for nothing, you should make sure that you have done everything within your power.”  
Jongdae held his breath and looked at Junmyeon who looked embarrassed. After Minseok had left, Luhan had been transferred from the Western to the Northern office to make up for some of the missing expertise. To Jongdae, it had not made much of a difference because it had changed nothing about his duties. He still was the newest member, so he still got the most boring tasks. If anything, he had gained more knowledge because Luhan was more experienced than Yixing and more relatable than Minseok.  
But for Junmyeon it was completely different. Luhan’s presence completely diminished Junmyeon’s. Luhan had spent half his life in the Office, so he seemed to know everyone and to have been involved in everything. The problem was that it was technically still Junmyeon who was in charge of their branch.  
Junmyeon didn’t reply, so Luhan now turned to Jongdae. “You’ve worked with Kim Jongin before, right? Would you say that he’s comparable to Minseok?”  
Jongdae pulled a face because this wasn’t a discussion he wanted to be dragged into. “I mean,” he said and tried to phrase it in a way that would not insult anyone. Minseok could do things that were terrifying. Jongin’s summoning was pedestrian in comparison but it was hardly fair to evaluate him that way. It was like comparing the fastest kid on a high school track team with an Olympic gold medalist on steroids. “They’re both much better summoners than I am, so I can’t really judge.”  
Luhan clearly didn’t seem satisfied with that answer. He tried to prove a point and that point was to ultimately take some of the burden off Jongin. But his own bias still clearly came through. He was Team Kim Minseok all the way.  
“I’ll take care of the summoning,” Luhan said to Junmyeon. “If I can’t make it work, we can still request backup.” The way he said it, made it clear that he was sure he would be able to handle it.  
Junmyeon didn’t respond and turned to his screen with a frown.

When Luhan left that evening, Jongdae tried to ask Junmyeon about it but Junmyeon shrugged him off.  
“No, he was right,” he said with a tense smile. “I was a little rash. I had trouble with a summoning and should have consulted him first.”  
He sounded like a dog backed into a corner, so Jongdae dropped the topic.  
It was odd how things could change. When he had started working for the Northern branch, everything had seemed simple. Junmyeon had bored him with lengthy explanations, Yixing had given him helpful tips and Minseok had stood at the sidelines like a club bouncer. All their roles had been more clear. Now it was Jongdae trying to mediate between Junmyeon and Luhan who fought for the leadership.  
But then again had he maybe just not understood the Office well enough when he had started. These struggles would have been there from the start. If everything had been perfect, Yixing would not have been banished to Gwangju and Minseok would still be available.  
It was impossible to know exactly how other people felt. But few people were perfect liars. Once in a while, their true colors came through. If they had people around them who constantly saw them, those people would get glimpses of those colors. Jongdae had maybe only finally started to understand the whole system behind the Office. Like a child who learned the harsh realities of life, he had maybe only stopped being completely ignorant.

It was still early when Jongdae came home, so Jongin wasn’t back yet.  
A few days earlier had been the anniversary of Jongdae's brother's death. He had considered going home but had then not quite found the courage. When he was home, it was always more or less the same. Four years had passed and his relatives pretended to walk on eggshells and to not blame him and that they were just trying to make him feel better. But then an uncle would ask him about work, or an aunt would ask if he had a nice girl back in Seoul, and his mother would shush them because poor Jongdae wasn’t ready yet. So rather than to take part in that same old spiel, he had instead quietly gone to see his brother at the intersection he haunted and had listened to him for a little while. With every year that passed, his brother faded out a little more. Only a year ago, his speech had still been somewhat intelligible but by now it was nothing but a series of sounds. Soon, he would vanish completely.  
But Jongdae couldn’t simply stop caring about his remaining family, after all, so he used that evening to call. His mother ranted about their neighbor’s new ugly windows and then handed the phone to his grandmother who told him about a friend’s granddaughter who had recently moved to Seoul. When he again spoke to his mother, it had been decided for him that he would help that granddaughter settle in. He wondered when they had discussed this and whether it could have been circumvented if he had called at a different time. He considered making up a fake girlfriend but then completely lost the momentum.  
When he finally hung up, he was exhausted. It was past eight, so he texted Jongin to ask about dinner. He waited for half an hour and then ordered jjajangmyeon for himself when there was no reply.  
Shortly before midnight, he went to sleep. There was no point in waiting. When Jongin was late and couldn’t be reached, he either was busy working or got wasted somewhere. Those were his only two modes.

Jongdae woke up when there was a commotion in the kitchen. He blinked at the red digits of his alarm clock and immediately regretted it because red lights multiplied in front of his eyes. It was almost two in the morning. If there were robbers in his apartment, he was willing to risk being stabbed and put his pillow over his head to block out the noise. After what felt like hours, the night became quiet again.  
He felt himself drift back to sleep but was mildly disturbed when the pillow was shoved away. This was it. This was the result of him not investing in a second lock. Always have two locks, his father had said when he had moved to Seoul for university. Back then he had lived in a student dorm, so he had not been allowed to alter the door. No one had robbed him and that had probably made him feel invincible. Goodbye, world. This was his punishment.  
Something heavy dropped on the mattress and pressed against him. It seemed like a strange way to murder someone but then he recognized the smell. Jongin always bought a weird dandruff shampoo that smelled for days. It was probably supposed to scare his skin into not renewing his cells.  
Jongin put an arm around Jongdae, so Jongdae automatically held onto it and said, “What the fuck?” He was instantly awake. “What’s wrong with you? Were you raised by monkeys or why do you wear a coat to bed?” He touched the rough fabric. It was definitely the fancy trench coat that was completely inappropriate for winter temperatures.  
He tried to turn around in reproach but Jongin pulled him closer and put his dandruff head against the back of Jongdae’s shoulder.  
“Can you not argue and just let me stay like this?” he asked in a very quiet voice that made a shiver run down Jongdae’s spine.  
This had happened before. It always happened at night, always when Jongdae couldn’t properly look at him. This wasn’t the guy who took his stuff and acted like a little shit. It was someone different altogether. Someone he wasn’t sure he knew.  
“Did something happen?” Jongdae asked. He didn’t really expect an answer but it would have felt wrong not to ask. He put his hand on Jongin’s and lightly wrapped his fingers around it although he wasn’t sure if it was okay.  
“I just sometimes think that it would be nice if happiness was an option,” Jongin said and didn’t elaborate on what he meant.  
After a few minutes, Jongin’s breath became more even and Jongdae also fell back to sleep.

In the morning, he was alone. That, too, had happened before more often than he could count. Jongin never stayed in the same bed as him for the night. It was a line not to be crossed.  
When Jongdae went into the kitchen after coming from the bathroom, Jongin was in the middle of mixing raw eggs in a glass. He added soy sauce and then downed the whole thing.  
“That’s disgusting,” Jongdae said.  
Jongin grimaced but said, “Works wonders though.”  
It was always the same. He always pretended to be hungover even if he had not smelled of alcohol. When he really was drunk, he became gropy, not clingy. But Jongdae was not going to argue. There was no point and there were worse things than random midnight spooning.  
“Did you meet the architect yesterday?” he asked and opened the fridge to get a bottle of yakult.  
Jongin frowned at him and then said, “No. There’s still no date set for that. My guess is that the father has second thoughts because Sohee-noona told him she’s a psychic. He probably thinks I’m some weird occultist as well.”  
Jongdae snorted as he opened his bottle and nearly spilled the content. “Why? Successful occultists are loaded. If he passes up on that opportunity, he’ll regret it.”  
“I don’t think an architect needs to rely on the money I supposedly make,” Jongin said.  
Jongdae thought about it as he gulped down his drink. An architect and an occultist sounded like a fun combination for a comic. The premise alone was brilliant. But then he imagined Jongin, the occultist, who assaulted a good-looking architect at night and his mood turned foul.  
“Yeah, maybe,” he said as he opened the trash can a little too forcefully. He felt oddly confrontational, so he opted for a quick escape and went back to his room to get dressed. He didn’t know where the feeling suddenly came from. It had been a while since he had last felt angry for no reason.  
“Hey, do you want to eat chicken tonight? I’m probably home early,” Jongin loudly said from the living room while Jongdae pulled a sweater over his head.  
He looked at his reflection in the dressing mirror and practiced his expression before he said, “Yeah, sure,” in perfect indifference.


	4. dining

\- friends -

Sehun wasn’t sure how he had been dragged into the whole thing. He wasn’t a shaman but a future restaurant owner who happened to be able to see ghosts and who happened to have a few distant shaman relatives. The fact that a former Office elite would rely on him of all people only showed how much out of the loop the Office really was. The more he thought about it, the more it all seemed like a really well-structured cult. Summoners knew a lot. That was what had initially impressed him. But that knowledge was limited to only certain topics. Summoners knew everything about exorcism, and not much about anything else.  
Whatever karma it was that made him the mentor now, a side effect was a lot more ghostly traffic around him than ever before. It was like a nod from his grandmother who had probably wanted him to become a shaman and whom he had ultimately defied.

He carried a crate of beer from the storage room to the front but instantly knew that Chanyeol would have entered the restaurant. A swarm of ghosts filled the store with giggles. With his arms full and the corridor narrow, he had no choice but to walk through a couple of them. He tried to ignore them but some knew him by now, so they circled him happily. Chanyeol had the magical ability to attract every single moronic ghost in the city. They were all so stupid that they didn’t realize that he spent a lot of time around a guy who enjoyed exterminating their vengeful friends.  
“Your friend is here,” Sehun’s mother said when he entered the kitchen. She rubbed her arms and had probably fled because of the coldness. He knew for a fact that she didn’t believe in ghosts and that she had thought of her mother-in-law as insane but he wondered how long she could keep that up. It could be the hottest summer day in decades but the air around Chanyeol felt cold. Even she would have to notice that.  
“He’s not technically a friend,” Sehun said as he crossed the room. She clicked her tongue but didn’t argue. Friend or not, she couldn’t complain about regular customers.  
He put the crate down behind the counter, wiped his hands on his apron, and then looked around. Chanyeol sat at his usual table at the window and looked as though he tried hard not to laugh while he stared outside. Sehun assumed that one of the ghosts had done something funny because a couple of them cackled like a pod of dolphins.  
Before Sehun walked over, he took his emergency protective charm from the drawer under the registry and stuffed it in his pocket. Had it only been one ghost around, they would have stayed away from him but as he waded through a lake full of them, some inadvertently still bumped into him.  
“It’s like you’re a celebrity and I'm a reporter who has to fight off your groupies to get an interview,” Sehun said as he put the complimentary glass of water on the table and Chanyeol looked up with an apologetic expression.  
“I have no idea where they’re all coming from,” he said while the ghosts of a girl in a pink dress and a guy in a suit looked over his shoulder at the glass. Sehun’s guess was that part of Chanyeol’s appeal was the lack of fear. Sehun hated ghosts touching him and immediately got more charms whenever he felt bothered. But Chanyeol didn’t seem to mind. It was probably a side effect of him being best friends with a ghost for years.  
“So where’s our great hyungnim today?” Sehun asked. There always were ghosts around Chanyeol but the numbers usually were limited when one of the usual two idiots followed him.  
Chanyeol shrugged. “Not sure. He told me to meet him here.”  
It was what Sehun had feared. Park Chanyeol and Kim Minseok were harmless when they either visited his humble restaurant because they couldn’t think of any other place to go, or because Chanyeol had made the decision to. But when it was Minseok’s choice, he usually came to pester Sehun with questions. He wondered if he could run but decided that he still feared his mother’s wrath at him skipping work more than anything Minseok could say.

It took twenty minutes until Minseok arrived. Sehun was in the middle of filling a couple of glasses of beer but, again, he could feel the presence. This time the ghosts shrieked as they fled. Sehun looked up and saw Minseok shove ghosts away with his hands. A woman at another table followed him with her gaze in confusion because she couldn’t see the carnage he caused. No one perished but when Minseok reached Chanyeol’s table, he seemed exhausted and the few remaining ghosts stayed at a safe distance.  
Sehun brought the glasses of beer to a table of office workers celebrating a project they had finished, and then braced himself as he went to the ghost table to get their order.  
Luck wanted it that Chanyeol was so busy fussing about a clumsily tied bandage around Minseok’s neck, that Minseok himself didn’t get much of a word in.  
“What do you mean, it’s nothing? There’s blood on your collar. How is that nothing?” Chanyeol asked and Sehun leaned forward a little to have a better look. Minseok wore a grey sweater and there was a stain on it, but Sehun probably would have assumed it to be sauce.  
Minseok awkwardly tugged at the bandage. “It’s not as bad as it looks. It’s just a long cut.”  
Chanyeol leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Why do you have a cut on your neck at all?”  
Minseok didn’t reply and instead stared at the table.  
“So, uh, do you want me to come back later for your order?” Sehun asked. Chanyeol seemed surprised that they were not alone in the place but something about Minseok’s expression made it clear that this was something he had come to discuss. He obviously didn’t want to mention it in front of Chanyeol, however, so Sehun could only try and make sure that Minseok didn't catch him alone.

For the first hour, it went well. The two ordered several small dishes and ate in silence while Sehun was busy tending for all the other tables. When he checked up on them after about half an hour, they already seemed less tense and started with the soju. Minseok wasn’t great with alcohol, so that probably lightened the mood to a certain extent.  
But then Sehun made the mistake to bring a fresh bottle of soju right when Chanyeol was at the restroom and Minseok asked, “Has your grandmother ever told you of ghosts touching things in the physical world?” He seemed very sober.  
“Why, did you start hunting down urban legends now, hyung?” Sehun asked in return.  
He laughed but Minseok didn’t. “Most people would think that ghosts are nothing but stories but you and I can see them. We don’t know what else is real.”  
Sehun thought about it for a moment from a more serious angle. “Okay, but how would that even be possible? Ghosts don’t have bodies to touch stuff with.” Not even the coldness around them was really a physical sensation. It couldn’t be measured in temperatures although every living person could feel it. That was what his grandmother had taught him. There was nothing to fear from ghosts because they could only try and harm his mind.  
“So you haven’t heard anything, “ Minseok said and looked disappointed.  
It made Sehun feel oddly indignated. He had been a child when his grandmother’s ghost had started telling him these things. Even if she had told him something, it wasn’t exactly his duty to remember things that had not seemed useful to him. He didn’t need to be an exorcist to deal with his ability.  
But then he noticed the bandage and wondered. It was not unusual for summoners to get hurt when a ghost took control of a host. But Minseok was supposed to deal with nothing but hauntings. For him, it should not have involved any physical risks.  
“Wait, are you saying that a ghost hurt you?” he asked. It sounded even more incredulous out loud.  
Minseok folded his arms on the table and seemed about to say something. But then he looked up and his eyes widened as he fixated a spot behind Sehun.  
“What are you two talking about?” Chanyeol asked and sounded clueless.  
For a moment, Sehun felt tempted to ruin the whole evening for them all. He wasn’t sure why he was supposed to be confronted with issues Chanyeol was spared from. But then he said, “Hyung keeps trying to recruit me as if I didn’t run from the same organization as him.”  
He dramatically shook his head and Chanyeol looked from him to Minseok in visible confusion.

“Every time your friends come by, you look as if someone made you eat a caterpillar,” his mother said when Sehun sat down on a stool in the kitchen and downed a glass of orange juice.  
“They’re not my friends. That's why,” he said.  
His mother laughed as she took a plate with stir-fry his father had prepared. “Sure. Whatever you say.” She went back to the front while Sehun’s father hummed a melody.  
“They’re really not my friends,” he said.  
His father grinned at him and added fresh oil to his pan.

\- neighbors - 

There was a barbecue restaurant across the apartment building. It was old, so it didn’t look fancy but was always crowded. Because of it, warm summer nights were sometimes filled with the smell of meat that crept up all the way through the open apartment windows. The place had originally been built by the current owner’s father, or so the ghosts of older customers who sometimes hung around the back and drank invisible glasses shots of soju had told Jongin. The wife had been the prettiest girl in the neighborhood and everyone had wanted to marry her but she had chosen the son of the barbecue place. Jongin assumed that it was a combination of all those things that simply made it a place that allowed people to feel safe and warm.  
He wouldn’t have said it out loud because he was sure that the wife didn’t like him, but he himself was also quite fond of the place. The food was edible, the interior clean enough that he had not yet died of food poisoning and the drinks were cheap. But just like the ghosts who stayed to whistle at the wife, Jongin felt tied to it for emotional reasons. It was the Restaurant for Special Occasions. Although those special occasions had quickly grown more and more mundane.  
They had first gone when they had finished the project they had originally met for. The second time had happened after Jongin had become homeless. It had seemed odd then to eat barbecue of all things and Jongdae had made up a last-minute excuse of Jongin having to fight his fear of open fire. Once, Jongdae had come home from visiting his family in the countryside and had been hungry from the long bus ride. Another time, Jongin had won some money because Sohee had forced the whole office to share lottery tickets. The laundry machine had been broken one day, and they had been tired from carrying all the laundry to a wash salon a block away. Jongdae had survived an argument between Kim Junmyeon and Luhan. A neighbor had given them pocket money for helping her transport a new fridge up the stairs when the delivery company had refused to. There always was something. The point was that it was a place that Jongin had come to associate with Jongdae. Jongdae almost burning meat, and nodding off with his head against the wall, and arguing with the owner about soju brands, and saying hello to everyone, ghosts included, as though he was a local celebrity.  
Jongin had never laid any claims.  
But it had seemed natural that, if Jongdae went to the place, it would be with him. So when he saw Jongdae and a girl with a red hat enter, he wasn’t quite sure what to think.  
It didn’t seem right.  
Jongdae could date whoever he wanted. It was his neighborhood and his apartment and his life. But Jongin still felt betrayed and realized how ugly a feeling it was. Part of him wanted to march in there and disturb the two, another, more petty part considered to empty Jongdae’s toothpaste, hide his towels and drink all the yakult in the fridge. Instead, he turned around and opted for creating a fresh tab at the kiosk downstairs.  
He was already at the door and caught the eye of the kiosk owner when his phone buzzed. It was a text from Jongdae asking for emergency assistance.  
He didn’t think twice before crossing the road. But when he already was inside and when Jongdae waved him over, he suddenly wondered whether he shouldn’t have stayed away. Petty jealousy was one thing. But the relief at being included felt like getting a glimpse at the bottom of the ocean from the safety of a boat. He wanted to dive in, even if he knew that it would not end well.

The girl turned out to be Ahn Miyoung, an acquaintance from Jongdae’s countryside home. She had gone to university in Busan instead of Seoul because that was where she had relatives who had taken her in, and had moved to Seoul because she had been transferred to the headquarter of the trading company she worked for. She was twenty-five, nice enough that the restaurant owner’s wife had clearly immediately found a liking for her, and very talkative. The more he listened to her everyday life adventures, the harder it was for Jongin not to stifle a yawn.  
“Jongdae-yah, if you’re on a date with a pretty girl, you shouldn’t bring your cousin,” the owner’s wife said and slammed a fresh bowl with pickled radish in front of Jongin. “He just spoils the mood.”  
“He didn’t bring me, ahjumma. I just happened to pass by,” Jongin said, which caused her to glare at him. He honestly wasn’t sure why she disliked him so much. Jongdae had once cracked up when he had tried to explain it with ‘attitude problems’.  
“Oh, you’re cousins?” Miyoung asked and looked at Jongdae with big eyes. She had a head that was round like the moon, which miraculously did not make her look ugly. She had one of those rare faces that would only get ruined by plastic surgery because the composition was just right.  
Jongdae threw a glance at the owner’s wife to make sure that she was outside earshot and said, “Oh. No. That’s just what everything thinks for some reason. We’re just colleagues who happen to be neighbors.”  
Miyoung made an apprehensive sound and leaned her face on her hands. She looked at Jongin who chewed on a piece of meat. “You don’t look like cousins,” she said. There was something about her gaze that bothered him. He was sure that she already was drunk. “You’re really handsome. They don’t really make men like you where I’m from.”  
It was such a blatant pick-up attempt that he choked on his food. Jongdae, the supposed original victim of her flirtations, burst out laughing like the bastard he was, and clapped his back while pouring him a glass of water. “Now that’s rude,” he said and clearly was happy because her targeting Jongin meant that he was off the hook. “What am I, a second-class citizen?”  
She sighed dramatically. “You’re normal. Normal is okay back home but here you have to compete against pretty people like him.”  
Jongdae did not seem offended in the least and only laughed harder when Jongin stopped coughing and glared at him. This had clearly never been about him helping but about him being thrown under the bus instead.  
“Do you have a girlfriend?” Miyoung asked with flushed cheeks.  
“No,” he said. This was where he normally stopped in normal conversations to avoid unnecessary drama. But he didn’t want her to get the wrong idea, so he added, “I’m gay.”  
She immediately straightened up. Jongdae also seemed tense. It really was stupid how a single word could shift the whole dynamic of a situation. As if he had declared that he was contagiously ill.  
“Oh,” she said. There was a long pause. “That explains it then. Straight guys are never that good-looking. Look at Kim Jongdae. Just an average boy from the country who will eventually marry a country girl like him.” She laughed and hit Jongdae’s shoulder.  
Jongin chose the moment to put more meat on the grill. Jongdae wasn’t exactly what he would call straight but he was not going to argue. If not for becoming a summoner, Jongdae would probably already be married to a country girl. He came from the stable kind of environment where that probably was a welcome goal. Marry. Have children. Be boring and happy. That would have been his path.  
“Are you still in contact with Han Yuri?” Miyoung asked.  
“Who?” Jongdae asked.  
She slapped his arm. “That’s horrible, oppa! Didn’t you date her in middle school? She’s my friend’s older sister.”  
Jongdae grimaced when he tried to remember which caused Miyoung to giggle and continue showering him with affectionate physical abuse. That was one thing Jongin was glad he was spared. Guys didn’t normally slap him unless he had picked a fight. Jongdae would probably be covered in bruises by the time they could go home. Jongin had used up the cold patches after he had slipped on a wet public bathroom floor the other day, so they probably had to buy new ones on the way.

Once Jongin had been determined not to be a potential target, he understood why Jongdae would have asked him to swing by. Ahn Miyoung got more direct the more drunk she was.  
“I’m glad that you’re here, oppa,” she said and downed her glass with soju. “Seoul is just too big for me alone. But it’s just right for two.”  
She tried to refill her glass but Jongdae took the bottle from her. He threw Jongin a helpless glance but Jongin shrugged. There wasn’t much he could do. All the topics circled around things he didn’t understand. He wasn’t from the same town, he didn't know what it was like to attend university, and he had never worked in a regular company, so unlike Jongdae, he couldn’t just pretend to be a salesman. He had also never mastered the art of gently helping drunk women. When Sohee had been drunk during a get-together after work, she had put him in a headlock and they had wrestled until she had passed out. He had managed to carry her back to the office and dump her on the couch there. But that didn’t seem like the right thing to do with a girl who was younger than him.  
“Ahjumma, can we get some water?” Jongdae yelled.  
“Ahjumma, we also need more soju,” Miyoung yelled when she shook an empty bottle in front of her while Jongdae held the full one.  
“How do you plan to get her home?” Jongin asked Jongdae and received his first arm slap from Miyoung in return.  
“What are you saying? He’s not taking me home. We only just met,” she said with a coy smile. The thought had clearly crossed her mind. She was alone. He allegedly was alone. It probably made sense to her.  
Jongdae didn’t comment. The owner’s wife had probably not heard him, so he stood up to go to the kitchen to get the jug with water refilled. He seemed concerned when he returned and poured Miyoung some.  
Jongin didn’t like the view. It was the same feeling he had had when he had seen them enter the restaurant from across the street.  
“I know that he’s not taking you home,” he said. Miyoung drowsily smiled at him. Jongdae shot him a wary glance. “Because I’ll take him home with me.”  
Miyoung giggled at first. But then she looked at Jongdae with an alert expression and said, “Oh.”

Once Miyoung had safely been put into a cab, Jongdae stopped talking. He waited until the cab was out of view and then walked to the traffic light with his hands in his pockets as if he was by himself. Jongin followed a few steps behind. When he stopped at the kiosk, Jongdae marched forward without turning around. 

“You were the one who asked me to save you from the girl,” he said when he came home a few minutes after him. The kiosk lady had snapped at him for having no small change, which had spoiled his mood even more. “What was I supposed to do? If she had told you to bring her to her house because, ‘oh, oppa, I’m so dizzy,’ you probably would have gone with her like a moron.”  
Jongdae had his back to him and washed rice for breakfast like an abused housewife. He was probably going to prepare an array of salty side dishes next.  
“Probably,” he said after a long pause.  
“Is that what you wanted?” Jongin asked.  
Jongdae swayed a little. “I don’t know,” he said. Jongin was about to throw the pack with cold patches at him when he added, “It would have made sense. That’s probably what my family hoped for when they told me to meet her.”  
Jongin scoffed. “Then why ask me to come?”  
For a moment, it seemed as though Jongdae was not going to reply. The quiet sound of the rice being shuffled filled the room. Then he asked, “If I asked you to, would you meet my parents?”  
It was a question like a slap in the face. Jongin hated these questions. It was another expectation he couldn’t fulfill.  
“No,” he said.  
“Yeah, see, and that’s where I made my mistake,” Jongdae said. “Because now there’s a risk of my grandmother’s friend’s granddaughter telling people from my family that some guy pretending to be my cousin and I are doing things that she probably blows way out of proportion.” He put the wet rice to the side to let it soak and turned around with an expression Jongin couldn’t quite read. He didn’t look angry or desperate. It seemed like the beginning of another stupid argument that meant nothing. “That’s awkward to explain unless my fake cousin is there to tell them that he was just joking.”  
Jongin frowned. “And that’s why you’re upset?”  
Jongdae shrugged. “Yeah.” He was about to walk to the bathroom when he noticed the package in Jongin’s hand. “Are you hurt?” he asked.  
They were both supposed to diffuse the situation and not create further tension, so he said, “Yeah. I fell during a summoning.”  
“Do you need me to help you apply them?” Jongdae asked.  
There would be no bruise to find, so Jongin said, “No, I’m fine.”  
Jongdae nodded and walked away. When the bathroom door closed behind him, Jongin took a deep breath. He didn’t like complicated things. They were constantly on the edge of things becoming complicated. It was probably time for him to move on, but…  
There always was a but. It always stopped him. And in the end, he created more and more situations that would only make it worse.


	5. the distance between them

\- ghost crowd -

“You think they’re going to buy anything?” Baekhyun asked. The couple was still strolling around the shop, so Chanyeol couldn’t reply unless he wanted them to think he was crazy. He did in fact not think that they were going to buy anything. They were obviously on a date and had just entered a random shop on the way to somewhere else. When he had asked if he could assist them, the boyfriend had waved him off. Bike shops brought out the nostalgia that worked great as a means to bond in tense situations. That was the only reason why they were there and because of that, he was forced to watch the two flirt while he rearranged a display of locks.  
“Maybe he wants to steal something to impress her,” the dental assistant said as she floated next to Baekhyun. She was one of those ghosts who only remembered bits and pieces of their lives. She didn’t know her name but was sure that she had died in an accident in her dental clinic, so that was how they had ended up calling her. “I used to have a boyfriend who stole things for me all the time.”  
“Why?” Baekhyun asked.  
She shrugged which caused her to blur for a second. Her edges were a lot less sharp than Baekhyun’s. “Some of the things he stole were very nice. One day, he brought me a gold ring. I knew it was stolen because it had other people’s initials and didn’t fit. But it was really beautiful.”  
Chanyeol tried hard not to react. All her stories were bizarre, so even though she couldn’t remember the specifics of her accident, Chanyeol could only assume that it was a lot worse than he could imagine.  
“Okay, but what would the boyfriend steal here? Oil? A repair kit?” Baekhyun asked as though it was a serious thing to consider. “If he takes off with a bike, Chanyeol will notice it.”  
“And then he has to chase him and risk that the girlfriend steals more things,” the dental assistant said.  
Baekhyun nodded. “I see. That would actually be a smart plan.”  
“You’re both stupid,” Chanyeol said because he couldn’t stand it any longer. The boyfriend turned around and narrowed his eyes at him.  
“Are you talking to us?” he asked.  
He was small for a guy and looked like he would work in a bank or maybe in middle management in a trading company. But Chanyeol was not going to risk fighting a random person, so he held up his phone and said, “No, I was reading a webcomic. The characters are driving me insane. It’s about this girl who works for a dentist and who is friends with a high school student who never shuts up.”  
The guy did not seem to accept that explanation. He and his girlfriend left, probably about to waste more time in more shops.  
“That’s not nice,” the dental assistant said and flew through the rows of bikes before she circled Chanyeol. “I graduated top of my class in high school. I’m not stupid.”  
Chanyeol didn’t want to argue with her either. It was impossible to win an argument against ghosts because most of them didn’t actually understand logic or could remember the course of a conversation. For years, Baekhyun had kept ghosts from talking to Chanyeol, so he had assumed that most of them would be like him. But while Baekhyun could be annoying and while his voice sometimes sounded inhuman, he still talked the way he had when he had been alive.  
“He’s just nervous,” Baekhyun said. “His boss is late, so he doesn’t know if he can leave work in time. And his boyfriend will be here soon.”  
The dental assistant opened her mouth to form an ‘O’, like a girl who had only just heard a hot piece of gossip. It had been a year since she had started hanging out with them but she still was surprised whenever the topic shifted towards Minseok. She dressed like she would have passed away a while ago, so Chanyeol’s guess was that she came from a time when he could have been imprisoned for indecent behavior.  
It took her a moment but then her expression changed. “Is his boyfriend the mean boy?” she asked and spat invisible spit.  
“That’s the one,” Baekhyun said.  
Chanyeol still debated on whether to comment when the door to the shop swung open and Minseok stepped in as if he had sensed them talking about him.  
“Speaking of the devil,” Baekhyun said to the dental assistant who immediately floated backward into a shelf with maps.  
Minseok looked at Baekhyun with open hostility and Chanyeol felt a shiver running down his spine. He didn’t like these situations. The two had never gotten along but lately, it seemed to deteriorate more and more.  
“Minseok-sshi,” he quickly said and tried to step in the line of fire between them. “Jungmin-hyung is late again, so I can’t leave yet. I tried texting him a while ago but he’s probably busy somewhere.”  
Minseok’s gaze shifted towards him and lost some of its tenseness. “That’s fine. I can wait.”  
Chanyeol had planned to suggest that he go home without him because Jungmin, the owner of the bike shop, had terrible time management skills. There was a chance that he would not turn up at all. But he didn’t come off as harsh, so instead he said, “The coffee shop across the street has a new menu, so a lot of the stuff currently comes with a discount. It’s probably less boring to wait there. I’ll try to reach Jungmin-hyung and be there as soon as possible.”  
Minseok looked outside but didn’t say anything. It probably still came across as Chanyeol trying to get rid of him. He didn’t. But towards the evening, more and more ghosts tended to swarm the shop and he knew that Minseok would probably try to fight them.  
“Yeah, I’m sure he hates that idea,” Baekhyun said and sat down on the counter. His legs sunk into the surface. “Remember how you dated the girl who used to work there? If he still has my memories, he would know all about that in vivid details.” Baekhyun held up his hands and formed his fingers in a frame around Minseok who now again focussed on him. “Just imagine that. You date a guy and know everything about every single girl he hooked up with. That would drive me mad.”  
Chanyeol had not thought about that because it was something he preferred to ignore. He had almost forgotten about the girl in the coffee shop in years, too, because she had quit soon after he had broken up with her.  
Minseok looked as though he wanted to say something but then he only fixated the floor for a moment. He probably swallowed his anger. He did that a lot. If it had been any other ghost, he would have found a way to make them leave but Chanyeol had asked him not to touch Baekhyun. Baekhyun had in return agreed to leave them alone most of the time but these situations still happened every now and then. Baekhyun was better at verbal attacks and Chanyeol always felt guilty because it was his fault that Minseok was impaired.  
Minseok raised the corners of his mouth in a tense smile and said, “I’ll wait in the coffee shop.”  
He turned on his heels without another word and was already through the door when Chanyeol dashed through the store. “Minseok-sshi, I’ll try to hurry,” he said but Minseok already started crossing the street.  
“What’s his problem?” Baekhyun asked behind him.  
“Shut up,” Chanyeol said. Across the street, Minseok hesitated in front of the coffee shop and looked up to the sign. Unlike the interior, it had not changed in years. It was the same sign that would have been stored in Baekhyun’s memories.  
“Also, don’t you think it’s weird that you still address him formally?” Baekhyun asked. “You’re more polite around a guy you sleep with than with the boss who pays you.”  
Chanyeol didn’t want to take the bait. He had thought that these conversations were finally over but he was still much too used to them. Baekhyun had always commented on every single of his relationships.  
“Why are you doing this?” he asked and tried to stay calm. When Minseok finally entered the coffee shop, he turned around. Baekhyun floated around the shop and was again accompanied by the dental assistant.  
“I just think that the guy doesn’t appreciate what he has,” Baekhyun said and wandered through the wall, as if it had nothing to do with him.

Jungmin was forty-five minutes late, so when Chanyeol finally ran across the street with his jacket still open, the afternoon soon had already slowly set and he was followed by a few of the ghosts that haunted the street at night. He hoped that they would sense Minseok before anything could happen to any of them. But when he barged into the shop, the ghosts blindly filtered inside and Minseok, in the middle of a call, looked up in irritation.  
Chanyeol raised his hand in greeting and dropped it when Minseok nodded at him but then bent down to make notes in his agenda. It probably was about work. It always was about work and Chanyeol couldn’t really blame him because he was late for the same reason.  
“He has a nice face but I think he’s very mean,” the dental assistant said before she wandered off to sit down next to a couple sharing a piece of cake. “You need to floss properly or you will ruin your teeth,” she said to them.  
Chanyeol cracked a smile because he wondered if he would ever become a ghost who identified with his profession instead of his name. Maybe he was going to become the Bike Shop Guy. Although he would prefer not to become a ghost at all.  
When he stopped looking at her, he noticed Minseok watching him with a frown.

“How many of them normally follow you?” Minseok asked when they stood in the bus towards his house. He leaned in closer than he normally would have and Chanyeol felt stupid for not immediately realizing that the reason for that would be another uncomfortable conversation.  
He shrugged. “It depends on where I am. I don’t keep count,” he said.  
Minseok sighed because he clearly didn’t like that response. Chanyeol knew that he was occasionally followed by quite a crowd because Sehun had told him as much. Sometimes, there were dozens. But usually, it was just a matter of one or two. It didn’t bother him unless they talked at him while he was in a conversation with living people. At home, Baekhyun made sure that it was just him and around Minseok the number of ghosts usually dropped to zero, so there were always moments to breathe. But if Minseok had been in the same situation, he probably would have kept files on every single ghost.  
“They’re all harmless,” Chanyeol said. “Most of them are actually fun to talk to.”  
Minseok didn’t immediately reply. He stared at the illuminated streets passing by outside. “I don’t want you to get hurt because you trust them too much.”  
It was one of those things Chanyeol wasn’t quite sure what to reply to. He appreciated the sentiment and he could understand where Minseok was coming from. But he personally found it easier to simply accept that the ghosts were around him. If he thought of them as threats, life would only get harder for him.  
“I try to be careful,” he said and took Minseok’s hand. But Minseok seemed far away.

There were no ghosts in the supermarket that evening but Chanyeol only noticed that when Minseok went to pick up toilet paper while he walked to the dairy aisle. Ghosts stayed away from Minseok but even the ones in his neighborhood who were scared of him tended to approach Chanyeol. This time it was oddly quiet.  
“Stop putting your shit in my basket,” a voice close to him said. It was oddly familiar, so he turned around. Two guys stood in front of the cheese. It took him a second until he recognized Kim Jongdae. It had been months since they had last run into each other at a nearby convenience store. He and Minseok in the same store probably were what kept the ghosts at bay.  
For a second, he considered greeting him but then the second guy asked, “Why is milk suddenly only my shit? I’m happy to share.” As if to prove his point, he dropped a carton of milk into Jongdae’s plastic basket. He had his back turned to Chanyeol, so he couldn’t see his face.  
“Share with what money?” Jongdae asked. “Two minutes ago you told me that you forgot to bring your wallet. If there’s anyone who’s sharing anything, it’s me and I don’t need milk because it gives me diarrhea.” He took the carton out of the basket and put it back on the shelf.  
“Gross,” the other guy said. There was a pause. “So can you lend me money? There’s some stuff I’d like to buy.”  
Jongdae turned away. “No.”  
“What’s the big deal?” the guy asked. “You think I’m going to elope with the milk and your money when my wallet is probably on the kitchen table?”  
“Is there money inside though?” Jongdae asked.  
“Probably,” the guy said and picked up the carton of milk again. He reached around Jongdae and dumped it in the basket. Jongdae shook his head but left it where it was. Something about the whole moment was odd. It was strangely intimate, as if they were not actually in a public space.  
It didn’t feel right to be there, so Chanyeol tried to flee to a different aisle. The problem was that Minseok chose that moment to return with a huge package of toilet paper and caught Jongdae’s eye.  
“Minseok-hyung!” Jongdae said.  
Minseok dropped the toilet paper rather than do a proper greeting. Jongdae laughed and then noticed Chanyeol. “Park Chanyeol, long time no see,” he said in a perfectly happy tone. The other guy turned around with a wary expression. He seemed vaguely familiar but Chanyeol couldn’t quite place his face.  
It seemed like an inconsequential situation to him. But the other three all instantly changed their attitudes. Minseok straightened his back. The guy next to Jongdae nodded at Minseok with a face as though he had been punched in the gut. And Jongdae grimaced uncomfortably.

\- more -

Jongdae looked down at the two tote bags with groceries next to his feet and mentally went through his purchases. The only thing he could think of that needed to be refrigerated was the milk and he was not going to drink that, so he was safe. But if Jongin ended up getting food poisoning, he knew he would feel guilty about it because it was technically his fault that they had not gone home right away. Both Jongin and Minseok had looked ready to leave after having exchanged vague pleasantries. But Jongdae and Chanyeol had ended up chatting in the queue at the cash register. Chanyeol had said that he and Minseok were not yet sure what food to pick up on the way home and Jongdae had said that he was probably going to make ramyun. Chanyeol had agreed that ramyun was a perfectly valid dinner choice and the whole conversation had ended up with them deciding to go to the barbecue restaurant across the street from his house instead.  
At first, he had tried to tell himself that it would be good for Jongin to have Minseok cornered like that because it would allow him to get a few hints. Jongin technically was his successor, so there probably were things he wanted to ask. But what Jongdae had completely failed to consider was Jongin’s pride. He had probably been a summoner for so long that he would not want the help of a legendary traitor.  
Minseok in return also didn’t seem too happy with the situation. Jongdae sometimes met him on his way home from work because they lived close to each other and he knew Minseok, so he had never really taken short sentences and evasive answers to heart. It had never been completely unpleasant. But there probably was a difference between talking to him, the former colleague who had been far below in ranks, and Jongin, one of the elites of the Office. It was dynamics like these Jongdae sometimes really hated about the whole organization.

“So how did you end up being roommates?” Chanyeol asked in another attempt to start a conversation.  
The tricky thing was that the cousin explanation didn’t work. Chanyeol alone would have bought it but Minseok knew everything, so he probably would have been aware of any family ties between summoners.  
“My house burned down a while ago,” Jongin said in a completely dispassionate way as he took a piece of pork belly off the grill and wrapped it in lettuce.  
“Shit,” Chanyeol said and choked on his soju because he had probably expected something less dramatic. “That’s rough. I remember how a few years ago, a house burned down in my neighborhood. The family lost almost all their belongings. That really made me appreciate everything I have.”  
Jongin chewed and looked as though he considered whether it was worth replying or not. Then he shrugged. “It’s technically the second time this happened to me, so I keep important documents in a fireproof box.”  
Jongdae had not known about that. But it explained why Jongin had moved with a huge metal box covered in soot and a plastic bag filled with a random assortment of slightly burned things. He had bought a lot of new clothes in the first couple of weeks after the fire but had seemed surprisingly unfazed. Money had not seemed to be an issue either. Jongdae had thought that Jongin simply couldn’t be impressed by anything in life but in retrospect, he wondered why he had not asked more questions.  
“Damn. Talk about bad luck,” Chanyeol said.  
Jongin shrugged.  
“Did you get transferred?” Minseok asked.  
It was such a sudden change in tone that Jongin’s face dropped. “I didn’t,” he said. There was an edge to his voice.  
“It takes close to an hour from here to the Eastern branch,” Minseok said.  
Jongin scoffed. “So?”  
Minseok frowned as though he expected there to be a hidden conspiracy. That part about him was probably not going to change. Next to him, Chanyeol put a piece of pork in his mouth and chewed on it like a dog owner who couldn’t decide yet if he needed to hold his dog back or not. Jongin also seemed ready to snap, so Jongdae quickly said, “I guess all his other friends realized that he has a habit of stealing food. So I was probably his last resort. I didn’t realize I’d allow a plague into my house.”  
He laughed and at least Chanyeol chimed in but Minseok seemed confused and Jongin clenched his jaws. 

After that, things didn’t really improve.  
Jongin stopped talking and started to stuff his face. He stole a piece of meat Chanyeol was about to pick up and poured himself soju like a village ruffian. The owner’s wife happened to see that and shook her head behind him when she brought meat to a different table.  
Jongdae chatted with Chanyeol and Minseok but the more time passed, the more he felt like a third wheel. He had spent time around couples before. He had also been part of couples. But he had almost forgotten what it was like because people in the Office tended to be solo. A year earlier he had gone to a class reunion of his middle school and had sat opposite two classmates who had recently gotten married. The two had been so obviously in love that they had become the joke of the evening. ‘Look at Han Jaehwan and Nam Soyeon. It’s like they’ve merged into one person,’ someone had said and they had all laughed. But all those among them who knew they would go home alone had probably simply been jealous. There was something about happiness that was hard to watch.  
Minseok and Chanyeol were like that. As if they lived in a different sphere.  
“Minseok-sshi, remember my aunt who married a fisherman?” Chanyeol asked after looking at his phone and turned to Minseok.  
Minseok furrowed his brows but nodded.  
“My sister just texted me. Turns out that my aunt sent us a box with seafood and there’s not enough space in the freezer, so my mother asks if you want to come round for dinner tomorrow. My sister calls it an emergency but she probably exaggerates.”  
Minseok’s mouth turned into a thin line. In-laws were probably always tricky. “I think I’m free,” he then said. He sounded reluctant.  
And Jongdae felt rotten because he knew that he was jealous. It was a feeling that suddenly overcame him like bile rising up his throat.  
It was the accumulation of small things. Minseok leaning over to wipe the table with a napkin when Chanyeol dropped a piece of pickled radish. Chanyeol holding onto the back of Minseok’s chair when he turned around to call the owner’s wife over. Minseok wordlessly handing Chanyeol beef wrapped in lettuce. Chanyeol pulling at Minseok’s arm when Minseok almost accidentally leaned into spilled sauce on the table. Compared to them, Jongdae and Jongin sat next to each other at the table like strangers on a bus. Jongin wasn’t participating in anything but the strategic decimation of the food in front of him. It normally wouldn’t have bothered Jongdae. It had never bothered him before. But suddenly he wondered if they weren’t actually wasting their time the way they were. 

The evening ended when Minseok stood up to pay the bill. Jongdae tried to protest but Minseok waved him off.  
“He says he earns more now than he used to at the Office,” Chanyeol said and reminded Jongdae of one of his aunts who always explained his uncle’s actions like a soccer commentator. That was probably what Minseok had needed all along. An interpreter.  
Outside, they positioned themselves in one of those circles that came after casual get-togethers when no one really knew how to find closure for the evening. Chanyeol had a package of toilet paper tucked under one arm while his other shoulder was occupied by a duffel bag Jongdae hadn’t noticed before. Minseok had half his face buried in his scarf and held onto the bag with other groceries.  
Jongdae wondered what to say when something tucked at the tote bag in his right hand. His first instinct was to pull it closer to him but Jongin made a disgruntled noise and ripped it out of his hand.  
“What the hell?” Jongdae asked.  
Jongin glared at him. At first, he thought it was about the potentially spoiled milk. But then Jongin suddenly took his hand and pulled him away from the scene like an angry mother who wanted to scold her child out of earshot from her friends.  
“See you around then. Thanks for the food, hyung,” Jongdae managed to yell to Chanyeol and Minseok who were left behind in puzzlement.

At first, Jongdae thought that it was nothing but a simple disagreement that would get solved without them having to do anything about it. He figured it was about something stupid. Maybe he had accidentally said something offensive. Maybe Jongin just couldn’t stand Minseok. Maybe it was something different altogether. They were not actually close enough that Jongdae could know everything that went through Jongin’s mind.  
But when Jongin kept dragging him behind himself like a bounty hunter about to cash in on a fugitive, Jongdae increasingly felt that something was not quite right about the situation. They were almost at the front door when he stopped and freed his hand. It felt stiff from the tight grip.  
“Okay but in all seriousness, what’s wrong with you?” he asked.  
Jongin had his back to him as though he planned to dash off at any moment. His shoulders heaved a little. “What am I to you?” he asked in a low voice. He was barely audible over the street noises.  
Jongdae grimaced because he figured that this was about him calling Jongin a plague. It had been meant as a joke to stop Minseok from asking further questions but he had probably gone overboard after all. He tried to make it sound as sincere as possible when he said, “My roommate.”  
“I’m sick of that,” Jongin said.  
Jongdae sighed. It had only been a matter of time. He would still be able to pay the rent, even if he lived there on his own.  
“What do you want to be instead then?” he asked although the answer was obvious. They were supposed to be colleagues in different offices. Once a year, they would meet during a big get-together, dressed in semi-formal clothes, and exchange a few words. Jongdae would mention one of Jongin’s reports and Jongin would act aloof because it was expected of him. Every now and then, Jongin would probably still help out with summonings and Jongdae would act annoyed because he had to play the assistant. That was how things were supposed to be. He was prepared to hear that.  
But then Jongin turned around and said, “I want to be more.”  
Jongdae blinked in confusion. 

He didn’t believe it, not really. But part of him was swept away in the moment.  
Life would go on and nothing would change but he would at least have the memory of a moment when everything had seemed possible.

They had kissed before but it had always felt different. It had always been just part of an angry self-serving routine. They could kiss and discuss grocery lists and electricity bills in between breaks because all these things had carried equal amounts of unimportance. It had never been supposed to be about feelings.  
But this time it felt desperate. It felt as if they were searching for the meaning of something important. The feeling of skin against skin was like an epiphany. It drowned out everything else.

He didn’t believe it, however.

When he woke up before the sun had risen because his arm had gone numb and when Jongin still breathed against his neck, he still didn’t think it would last.  
He felt a chill, so he used his free arm to move the blanket further up to his shoulders which in return caused Jongin to stir.  
“You and your dwarf legs maybe fit under your dwarf blanket but some of us are normal-sized,” Jongin mumbled and wrapped his legs around Jongdae’s as though he tried to do a wrestling move.  
“I’m not sure where you come from but you don’t count as normal-sized in this country,” Jongdae and used the waking moment to shift enough that he could free his numb arm a little. He was thankful when Jongin obliged and shifted his head away from Jongdae’s shoulder and further towards his chest.  
“I have to get up at five,” Jongin said with a yawn.  
Jongdae looked at his alarm clock. It was close to two in the morning. “Do you want me to set the alarm?”  
“Nah. I have a perfect inner clock,” Jongin said.  
Jongdae groaned at the braggery and Jongin’s breath tickled against his skin when he snorted.  
“But when you wake up and I’m gone, that’s why,” Jongin added.

He was scared of believing it because he had not allowed himself any real hope for four years. He had not realized how much he had held it in until he felt as if a floodgate inside him was about to burst.

When he left the house that morning, a ghost in a white summer dress smiled at him. Her long hair rippled in an invisible breeze. The way she was dressed reminded him of a woman in a TV commercial he had often seen in middle school. If she was that old, she was surprisingly sharp.  
Ghosts sometimes followed him, so he probably wouldn’t have thought too much of it. But he was sure that he saw her again when he left for a summoning with Luhan in the afternoon. Again, she smiled. Again, her hair flowed.  
It seemed like a premonition, although he wasn’t sure what kind.

Later that afternoon, he was hospitalized with a mild concussion.

A day later, Jongin moved out.


	6. break

\- the cursed child -

When Jongin had joined the Office as a sixteen-year-old, he had been strong from the start. Luhan remembered that in vivid details because it had made himself feel small in comparison. As with most new recruits, there instantly were rumors, so he knew that Jongin had lost all his close family members within the course of a few years. Before he had been recruited, he had had less than a year of being haunted by his sister. All things considered, he should have been broken. Anyone else in his situation would have been. Luhan himself had been recruited as a fourteen-year-old, barely younger, but he had been useless for the first five years. Nightmares had kept him awake. Tears had burnt on his face. Life had seemed meaningless. For Minseok it had been the same. He had been able to see ghosts all his life and when he and Luhan had met, he had already been in the Office for four years. But he had not been allowed to do complete summonings on his own until he had turned seventeen and had finally been deemed stable enough. Before that, he had mainly accompanied other summoners and had caught up on the education he had missed as a child. For Luhan, it had also taken a while just to learn Korean. The two of them had proven something that he had always thought of as a given. Children were too much of a liability to be summoners, especially when they had lost family members.  
But Jongin had been different. After half a year of basic training, the sixteen-year-old him had done his first own summoning. According to what Luhan had heard, it had happened by accident. The summoner who should have accompanied him that day had been sick and Jongin had been forced to act on his own. But he had been so good at it, that he had soon been given duties that someone his age should not have been assigned to.  
As with many great minds, many people had disliked him for it. Unlike Minseok who was accepted because he sparked pity in the ones who knew about his trauma and bewilderment in the ones who didn’t, Jongin’s success had seemed unwarranted. He had an ability that should have come with heavy trauma, just like how Minseok was a strong summoner exactly because he had been raised by an abusive ghost. But Jongin had seemed fine. He seemed to have accepted his role without complaints, as if it was the most natural thing.

If Luhan was completely honest, he had not liked Jongin for the longest time. He normally felt protective of those summoners who were denied certain duties because of the way they had ended up with their abilities. Minseok could kill ghosts and still had not been allowed to mentor. Regular summoners like Luhan or Zhang Yixing were permanently held back. But while Jongin had not been given trainees, he had still acted cocky like one of those who were only slightly traumatized. To Luhan, he had seemed more like Wu Yifan, another one of those who had quickly risen in ranks.  
Luhan had been petty, so he had disliked Jongin without ever having talked to him. So when the twenty-one-year-old Jongin had one day been assigned to a project in Luhan’s branch because Minseok had been busy hunting down a ghost who had hijacked a host and fled the city, Luhan had been skeptical.  
Jongin had been mostly helpful and professional but Luhan was sure that he would have continued his one-sided hostility if not for an odd glimpse at the person behind the facade.

There had been a bakery in the same building that was famous enough to regularly cause queues, so Luhan had not thought too much about it when Jongin had always carried a bag with bread when he had entered the office. If anything, it had bothered him when Jongin had made chewing noises during serious briefings or when he had spread crumbs on other people’s desks.  
After a few days of it, Luhan had finally understood it because he had run into Jongin making out with one of the bakers on the staircase up to the office.  
Jongin had not seemed the least bit ashamed and he and Luhan had not exactly been close, so Luhan had assumed that he had not stumbled upon a great secret but a piece of public knowledge. So when the project had ended and when they had all gone out for a drink, he had said, “I suppose we're still going to see you when you meet the baker.”  
It had not been a great conversation starter but he had also not really meant to start a proper conversation. He had found himself stuck next to Jongin, so he had only meant to say something to break the silence.  
Jongin had shrugged. “No worries. You won’t see me around after this. The baker and I aren’t a thing.”  
Luhan had frowned. In all his life, he had never been obsessed enough with anyone that he would have risked bothering colleagues with his public affection. He had been a little drunk at that point, so he had asked, “Is that a gay thing? Do you just make out with anyone and it doesn’t matter to you? Poor baker.”  
It had matched his image of Jongin, so he would not have given it a second thought if they had left it at that.  
But then Jongin had said something curious. “It’s better for him as well. If he stays with me, the curse will kill him.”  
They had just been hushed words spoken into his glass of beer before he had taken a sip. But it had instantly sobered Luhan up a little.  
He had heard about that before. The difficult part about grief was acceptance. They were summoners because they had been confronted with death they had not been able to deal with. They were victims of accidents and murder and illness, things that were very real and very human. What they had to accept was that they had not been the cause. But not everyone could do that, so they sometimes ended up with occult ideas. When Jongin had joined the Office, he had been famous for believing that a curse had killed his family.  
In that moment, Luhan had not been sober enough to say anything helpful and afterward, the topic never emerged again. No one really liked to talk about their past and everyone had some burden to carry, so he eventually forgot about it. He stopped disliking Jongin but was not exactly in a position to help. Jongin was an adult. He, too, would eventually understand.  
But then someone else got hurt and the story of the curse came back into focus.

Luhan wasn’t blind or deaf, so he had been suspicious of Jongin and Jongdae from the start. When Jongin had helped out with the ghosts Yixing had left behind, he and Jongdae had both acted a little strange around each other. Jongdae usually was mild-mannered but had regularly cursed Jongin out. Jongin meanwhile usually was aloof but had clearly enjoyed riling Jongdae up. It had created the kind of tension that had worried Junmyeon and that Luhan had not wanted to be around for.  
So when he sat in the ER waiting area and when the phone in Jongdae’s coat pocket kept buzzing, Luhan was not overly surprised that Jongin’s name lit up on the screen. It seemed like the continuation of a story he had only heard the beginning of.  
Before Luhan could explain that Jongdae most likely wasn’t badly hurt, Jongin already asked for their location and hung up. Still, Luhan chose to see it as a good sign. Loneliness was a common issue for summoners because they often had no one to confide in. It was ideal when summoners found each other and could make it work. He thought it was that.  
But when Jongin arrived at the hospital completely out of breath, Luhan quickly realized that it wasn’t so simple.

Jongin did not explain why he was there but proceeded with detailed questions as though he was a detective conducting an interview. Luhan and Jongdae had both attended the summoning because the host was a taekwondo teacher. No one in their office had decent martial arts training, so they had gone with Luhan, the most experienced, and Jongdae, who had attended basic taekwondo lessons in elementary school. Their advantage had been in numbers. All things considered, it had gone better than expected at first. But then Jongdae had fallen down a flight of stairs and hurt his head, so they had rushed to the nearest hospital. According to the last thing the nurse had told Luhan, he was awake and could probably be discharged that evening. He had a concussion and needed stitches but it could have been worse. After a few days of rest, he would be fully back on his feet.  
While Luhan recited the scene in as much detail as he was going to write down for his report, Jongin nodded with his arms crossed in front of his chest. He seemed composed but there was something nervous about the way his gaze flicked through the room. He kept looking at the coat in Luhan’s arm and Luhan realized too late that it probably was because of the bloodstain on it.  
When Luhan was done, Jongin said, “Right. I’m going to go then. Don’t tell him I was here.”  
The words didn’t immediately make sense to Luhan. Jongin had already turned away when he managed to ask, “Wait, are you serious? You’re here already, so why not wait until they let him go? He’s probably happier to see you than me.”  
“I doubt that,” Jongin said and proceeded to walk away. It seemed like a cruel move.  
“Is this about your curse?” Luhan asked and Jongin stopped with his back still turned to him. “You know that’s ridiculous. There’s no such thing as curses. I don’t know what you’re scared of but you can’t blame everything on that. All you do is make life harder for yourself.”  
He wanted to say more but Jongin scoffed. “Sunbaenim,” he said and turned around in irritation. “I’m not a host you need to counsel, so I would appreciate it if you could not talk about things that are none of your business.”  
Luhan didn’t want to back down, so he said, “I don’t know what kind of relationship you have but isn’t Jongdae part of that as well? Are you going to tell him that you think you’re cursed?”  
Jongin’s face twitched a little but he still kept up the facade. He seemed to be in control of himself. But there was venom in his voice when he asked, “So what about you? Do you still think of killing yourself because you believe that you should have died with your mother? I haven’t checked your file in a while. Do you still receive counseling for that?”  
It was like a slap in the face. Luhan had not thought about it that way but information were weapons in the organization. That was why they were different security levels and confidential files. Not many people had access to other people’s files but even the details on that were confidential. Luhan suspected that Jongin didn’t remember the story of the baker and instead assumed him to have snooped around his file. Luhan didn’t have access to it but Jongin would not necessarily know that. What this instead showed was Jongin’s position. He could read personal files of active summoners which meant that his rank was higher than Luhan’s. For a second, Luhan hated him for it. He hated the structures that caused them to be unequal like that.  
Jongin seemed to realize his mistake and sounded a little calmer when he asked, “The ghost focussed on hurting him and disappeared after they had succeeded, right?”  
Luhan blinked because he couldn’t remember how he had described it. He and Jongdae had attacked the taekwondo teacher from two sides, so he had been forced to fend them both off. Luhan also had bruises due to that. But if he thought about it, he probably had had a little more breathing space than Jongdae. It also was true that they had only managed to get to the hospital so quickly because the ghost had left the host the moment Jongdae had fallen down the stairs.  
When he didn’t reply, Jongin said, “That’s how it starts. It’s always an accident or a stupid coincidence. That’s what will kill him eventually unless I stop first. So don’t tell him shit just because you don’t understand what is going on. That’ll only make it worse.”  
When he left, Luhan didn’t try to stop him. He felt responsible. Moments like this were what made it so hard at times. After sixteen years in the Office and all the training he had managed to gather over the years, there still were situations he wasn’t equipped for. He was a neighborhood counselor confronted with people who needed a clinical psychiatrist. The problem was that, as long as a summoner functioned, no one really bothered to check whether they were okay. That way, small cuts turned into internal wounds.

Luhan didn’t mean to push the issue on Jongdae. He didn’t think that he had any right to. But he also figured that there was a chance Jongdae would eventually stumble upon the call history on his phone, so when Luhan was finally allowed to pick him up, he said, “Kim Jongin was here but he already left.”  
Jongdae put on his shoes on a hospital bed and looked up with a frown that probably stung. He winced and touched the skin below the bandage stuck to his temple. “Was he hurt?” Jongdae asked and sounded worried. At least that made it obvious that this was not just a one-sided thing.  
“No. He was looking for you,” Luhan said. “But I guess he was busy because he left when I told him you weren’t badly hurt.”  
For a moment there was an expression on Jongdae’s face Luhan couldn’t quite read. He seemed lost. But then he quickly caught himself and grimaced. “I’m not sure we agree on what ‘badly hurts’ means, hyung. A mild concussion is still a concussion. I think I deserve at least some sympathy for that.”  
Luhan laughed and decided not to pursue the matter.  
Jongin had been right. It was none of his business. But he still wondered if there was a chance for them. Jongdae wasn’t a great summoner but he was highly emotionally stable compared to most others. Despite also having been haunted by a family member, he had made peace with it much quicker than others in his situation. Luhan still feared going back to his hometown because there was a chance that his mother waited there for him. He was sure that, if he ever saw her again, he would not be able to live. But Jongdae had managed to do what only a few summoners were able to. He had told the ghost who haunted him to stay away and the ghost had obliged. Someone like that could maybe break a curse.  
Whatever it was that was going to happen, however, Luhan was not going to meddle.

\- the worried sister -

Kim Minseok was a mystery to Yura. She could accept that she and her brother didn’t have the same type, so it was not so much a matter of not finding Minseok attractive. On the contrary. To not find her brother-in-law attractive actually was a bonus. It was supposed to feel like gaining a second little brother she could coddle and fawn about.  
But Minseok was just really very odd. At first, she had wondered if he had grown up abroad because it seemed impossible to find common ground on anything with him. He was an orphan and yet he had apparently been home-schooled, so family and school were topics Chanyeol had told her to avoid. She knew that he worked as a counselor of some sort but he never elaborated, so she didn’t know any details. As far as she could tell, he had no hobbies. He was a slow reader, so he didn’t read much, or so Chanyeol had said. He didn’t play sports, didn’t travel for fun, and did not eat Western food. Everything around him was taboo. Things that were supposed to be normal apparently were triggers for him. In two years, she had never actually had a conversation with him that was not directed by her brother.  
It was the same this time at the dinner table. She and her parents tried their hardest to make Minseok feel at home. But he just looked terrified. He was polite but seemed to shrink in his chair while Chanyeol threw him nervous glances like a parent bringing their child to an unfamiliar environment for the first time. Every bite he took of the dishes presented in front of him seemed to poison him little by little.  
Yura knew that Minseok’s presence had improved her brother’s life because she had seen the signs. But whenever she watched him, she wondered how he had managed to lure her brother in. She couldn’t imagine them talking about anything. The more she thought about it, the more she suspected it to be a weird sex thing and the idea made her uncomfortable. She didn’t want to see her brother as a pervert.  
So she knew that she needed an opportunity to ease her mind.

After dinner, their mother started cleaning up the kitchen and their father went to the bathroom when Chanyeol’s phone rang. He ignored it and put it upside down on the table but it rang again.  
“Ah, shit, it’s Jungmin-hyung,” he said and already stood up. His boss had a habit of calling at the most ridiculous times. He only ran a bike shop and not a big company but the guy was always full of plans and ideas. Chanyeol had started indulging him much too quickly, so his boss now knew no boundaries. “Sorry, I’ll be back in a minute,” Chanyeol said to Minseok and left the kitchen. “Hyung? No, look, I’m currently… Yeah, sure, but…”  
The way Minseok looked at the door reminded Yura a little of a dog in the house of one of her friends in high school. When its owners left, it always looked devastated.  
She figured that this was the only chance she had. Before her mother noticed Chanyeol’s absence and could beat her to giving Minseok a stern talk, she said, “Hey, do you want to join me for a quick smoke outside?” She took a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of her sweater and waved it at him.  
Minseok furrowed his brows. He struck her as the kind of person who lived very cleanly, so she doubted that he smoked. But he clearly caught her drift and nodded.

The problem was that she wasn’t exactly sure how to start the conversation and Minseok was not going to bother either. She lit herself a cigarette and blew smoke into the evening while Minseok leaned against the gate outside the house with his hands in his pockets. He looked up at the sky, so she unwillingly followed his gaze.  
“Sometimes I think it’s a pity that we don’t live further outside,” she said. He threw her a questioning glance, so she added, “Our grandparents live in the countryside. It’s a village with only two buses per day connecting it to the nearest town, so it’s really pretty isolated. I always hated it there as a kid but thinking back, I never saw a night sky as beautiful as the one down there.”  
Minseok smiled awkwardly. Grandparents probably were taboo as well. But there were things she needed to get off her chest, so she couldn’t be too concerned with his feelings for the moment.  
“Chanyeol always loved it though,” she said. “It always gave him ideas. He wanted his own house and his own tractor and a chicken pen and a pretty wife and five children. He was scared of bugs, so I always knew that he would probably die in the countryside. But the wife and the children seemed like something that would suit him.”  
Minseok didn’t reply. He was somber, as though he got ready for an attack.  
Yura really didn’t mean to be offensive, so she sighed and ran her hand through her hair. “Look, I’m not saying that that’s what I want for him. I’m not so delusional as to think that he would have been happy marrying a girl. But as a kid, he used to be a lot more stable than he is now. Did he tell you about what happened to him in high school?”  
Minseok angled his head a little, so she half-expected him to have no clue. “Byun Baekhyun,” he then said. It sounded like a curse coming from his mouth.  
The name threw her a little. For years, it had felt like an ominous shadow over their lives. But if Minseok even knew the name, Chanyeol would have told him about it in detail. It also meant that Minseok had cared to listen. She remembered something Chanyeol had once said. Something had happened to Minseok, too. She wondered whether that was how they bonded and whether that wouldn’t only make it worse. She wasn’t sure what a relationship could look like if it was based on the need to lick each other’s wounds.  
“I worry about Chanyeol,” she said. “I worry about him all the time. If you’re the person he wants to be with, there’s not much I can say. But I have seen what happened to him when he lost someone close to him. The way things are now, I’m not sure how happy he really is. Has there even been any progress in the last two years? Can you promise not to hurt him? Can you promise to support him no matter what?”  
She didn’t know what would go through Minseok’s head. For a moment, he managed to hold her gaze but then he looked down at the ground. He seemed so troubled that she wondered whether she had accidentally turned into the evil relative in a TV drama who kept two lovers apart.  
But then something odd happened. Minseok sharply sucked the air through his teeth and glared at a spot somewhere to his left, as though in reaction to invisible swears. She probably would have thought of him as mad but she knew that kind of behavior. Chanyeol often did the same thing. He looked into empty spaces and reacted to nothingness, as if he could hear things no one else could. He had claimed to hear Byun Baekhyun right before he had tried to kill himself, so she had always thought of it as the remnants of that psychosis. It was of course possible that Minseok had a similar experience. But it would still seem odd for him to have the exact same nervous tic.  
She considered asking about it when Minseok already said, “I can’t make promises.”  
She sighed in response. He probably was too earnest to promise something he couldn’t guarantee. But this wasn’t about probabilities but about fundamental willingness.  
“I’m trying,” Minseok said. “But I’m not sure how much I can do. I never planned to have anyone in my life, so I don’t know if I can be enough.”  
His voice was flat when he spoke those words, so she did not immediately understand their impact. Her own view had probably been too simplified. She was biased towards her brother, so she had only ever seen Minseok as the mysterious boyfriend whose actions would follow a rationale she couldn’t understand. It was too complicated to think of him as someone with issues on his own.  
She wanted to say something helpful. Relationships were not about having to fulfill expectations. There was no such thing as someone not being enough. If Minseok wasn’t enough, Chanyeol wouldn’t have brought him home with him.  
But before she could say any of that, the front door opened and her brother’s head emerged. “Noona,” he said in reproach. “Isn’t it too cold to be outside?”  
She took another drag of her cigarette to show that she was perfectly fine with the temperature and planned a snarky retort. But then Chanyeol looked at the exact spot Minseok had glared at with a frown. 

\- the one who was left behind -

“You’re moving out?” Jongdae asked when Jongin was already at the door. He carried his metal box and two plastic bags with clothes, so it was not much of a question in light of the evidence. Jongin had not said a word but he had not technically said much of anything since the morning before Jongdae had ended up getting hospitalized. When he had come home, Jongin had not returned for the night. It was probably supposed to be a quiet cut. Jongdae had ruined that when he had realized halfway to the supermarket that he had forgotten his phone at home.  
“Yeah,” Jongin said with a shrug.  
It wasn’t an answer. It didn’t explain anything.  
“Why?” Jongdae asked. Anger welled up inside him and made him dizzy, so he had to hold onto one of the kitchen chairs.  
Jongin flinched a little. “Your couch messes up my back.”  
It was a stupid thing to say. There was a bed big enough for two people. But that wasn’t what this was about, so Jongdae said, “Right.”  
Jongin swayed a little. He had obviously counted on not having to say goodbye. “You can keep the milk.”  
Jongdae didn’t mean to but snorted a laugh. “Yeah. Thanks. I’m looking forward to shitting all over myself.”  
Jongin cracked an awkward smile and readjusted the strap of the plastic bag on his shoulder. “Sorry,” he said and Jongdae wasn’t sure what he apologized for.

It was never supposed to last, so if anything, it felt like the jump scare in a horror movie. All this time he had been tense in anticipation and once it happened, he felt a little lighter.  
He thought he could simply shrug it off like that.  
But then he felt sick and planned to lie down and stepped on a t-shirt Jongin must have dropped when he had hurriedly packed his belongings. It was an ugly red one he had usually slept in. When Jongdae picked it up, he couldn’t decide whether to throw it away or to send it to the Eastern branch in a dubious package that would cause the people there to ask uncomfortable questions. He put it to his face, just to check whether it needed to be washed. And before he knew it, an undetermined feeling flooded him. It felt heavy. It suffocated him.  
“Fucking asshole,” he muttered into the ugly fabric.


	7. on being hateful

\- power -

“I’m sorry but who are you again?” the ghost asked. “I’m really not sure why this is a discussion. We were best friends. Do you think that he wouldn’t allow me to share his body? That’s what friends are for.”  
Junmyeon sighed. Lately, he always ended up with ghosts who had an attitude. Most summonings were easy because most ghosts were understanding and had at least a certain sense of common decency. They often didn’t even really comprehend what it meant to possess. When called out, they left hosts on their own. But lately, all the unreasonable ghosts seemed to congregate in Junmyeon’s part of the city.  
“Did he give you his explicit permission?” he asked.  
The ghost scoffed. “What’s that supposed to mean? Isn’t his permission a given? He’s my friend.”  
The host was a fitness instructor, so when he folded his arms in front of his chest, the sleeves of his jacket tightened so much that it looked as though the seams were about to burst open. Junmyeon wondered if the ghost had worn his own clothes out of habit and had not considered the difference in physique. His jeans also looked a little short.  
“Could you leave him for a second and make him confirm that?” Junmyeon asked.  
The ghost narrowed his eyes at him.  
Before Junmyeon could even start trying to use charms, the ghost already hit him in the face and then fled with the host before Junmyeon could scramble back to his feet.

The problem was that he was unsure how to proceed after that.  
He knew himself well enough. He wasn’t a fighter, so if he met the ghost again, there was a chance that it would end the exact same way. It made him appreciate something he had always taken for granted. When he had joined the Office, he had been assigned to the same branch as Minseok from the start, so he had always been able to rely on him. For seven years, Minseok had shouldered everything remotely difficult and Junmyeon had come to believe that he himself was a better summoner than he really was. It was only when Luhan had been transferred as a replacement for Minseok and Yixing that Junmyeon had fully realized that.  
Luhan was more senior and a lot more experienced. They all knew that. But for some reason, Luhan had never been allowed in higher positions. He could do more advanced things than Jongdae but his official status was the same.  
The difficult part was that Luhan understood exactly how far he could go within his boundaries. He was technically a subordinate, so he could not challenge any decisions that Junmyeon relayed from the headquarters. Those were binding. But whenever Junmyeon tried to judge anything himself, Luhan started with suggestions and subtle complaints but never uttered any commands. Minseok had not always followed Junmyeon’s directions either but the difference was that Minseok had not openly challenged him. Luhan was different. Luhan made his presence known. He was usually nice about it but pulled his weight whenever he could. Whenever Junmyeon did something he didn’t agree with, he used his seniority as a weapon.  
So Junmyeon knew that, if he could not do this summoning himself, he unwillingly had to consult Luhan. The most likely outcome was that Luhan would do the summonings and would treat it as doing Junmyeon a favor. Only if Luhan failed could he ask for external help. Junmyeon wished there was another solution. 

But then Junmyeon carefully brought it up and Luhan said, “I guess we have to call Kim Jongin.”  
Junmyeon, who had lain awake all night to think of an explanation that would convince Luhan, felt the heat rising up his face. He had been ready to pounce, only to realize that what he had believed to be a tiger was a kitten.  
“Kim Jongin?” he asked. It was too easy. Luhan usually saw Kim Jongin as his last resort. He always had a look himself first because he didn’t trust Junmyeon’s judgment.  
But Luhan only shrugged and leaned back in his desk chair. “Well, we’re swamped, right? And the Eastern branch has more people, so they don’t need him all the time anyway.”  
Luhan smiled innocently which only confused Junmyeon even more. Something definitely was off. One of Junmyeon’s reasons usually was that very difference in manpower. They were currently the only understaffed office but apart from Luhan, they didn’t get a new transfer until a new summoner was recruited. Since summoners were created by tragedy, there was no guarantee when this would happen. But Luhan usually smashed that argument by implying that Junmyeon didn’t try hard enough.  
“Just request for his help and then make Jongdae go with him,” Luhan said and turned back to his screen as though the discussion was over.  
“Jongdae?” Junmyeon asked. “Why Jongdae?”  
“There should be someone from our office accompanying him to follow up on your report,” Luhan said without looking up.  
Junmyeon frowned and fought the urge to just leave without a fight. It was hard to argue with Luhan but it didn’t make sense. Junmyeon agreed that they should not make Kim Jongin do all the dirty work for them. Someone had to go with him. But there was no reason to involve Jongda.  
“It’s my summoning,” Junmyeon and tried to add emphasis to his words. “If anyone goes with him, it should be me.”  
Luhan stopped with his hands still on the keyboard. Then he slowly turned his head. It was one of those moments again. He was going to find a way to get his will. Junmyeon braced himself for a fight. He knew that this time he had the advantage on his side. His reason was more logical.  
But then Luhan averted his gaze and asked, “Jongdae, you’ve worked with Kim Jongin before, right? There’s a summoning you might have to accompany him for.”  
There was a dull noise and Junmyeon turned around. Jongdae stood in the door. A pile of documents was scattered on the floor in front of him.  
“Why?” he asked.  
Luhan laughed. “What kind of question is that? Because we’re telling you to.”  
That way, Junmyeon had no more chance to attack.  
It was always the same. One of them would have to lose face in their confrontations and Luhan always managed to spin it so that he struck first. He knew that Junmyeon couldn’t win. The only choice Junmyeon had was to either suck it up and never gain Luhan’s respect, or to risk making a fool of himself when he tried to beat someone who understood the system better than he did.

\- touch -

The reason why Minseok usually avoided dinner invitations at Chanyeol’s house was not just that it made him uncomfortable because he wasn’t used to being around families. As a child, his only family had been his mother who had told him that she was all he needed and that the outside world would break him. After that, his family had been the Office in which he had been told that he was a weapon. That alone would have made it hard to sit at a table with almost comically average people in the cramped kitchen of a small house that smelled old and alive. But he was sure that he would have managed to cope somehow, if not for the biggest problem of that setup.  
It was a matter of breaching into a turf that didn’t belong to him. Byun Baekhyun always made that very clear. Minseok was entitled to Chanyeol in his apartment. Byun Baekhyun was entitled to Chanyeol in his family’s house. Everything in the middle was open for debate. There were places Byun Baekhyun had little by little given up. When Minseok appeared, he left. But the house was his. So whenever Minseok was there, Byun Baekhyun attacked.

“She can’t stand you,” Byun Baekhyun said while Chanyeol’s sister Yura talked about the life she had wanted for her brother. “That’s what siblings are like I guess. I mean, I’m an only child, too, so I can’t completely relate. I never had a sister to be protective of.”  
Minseok tried to ignore him but Byun Baekhyun was close to his ear. His presence tingled.  
“But I suppose to you it’s an impossible mystery. Isn’t that what abused children are often like? You probably think you’re not loved unless you’re being locked inside a closet for the night because you were rude that one time.”  
He laughed and Minseok tried to stay calm. They were just words. Words couldn’t hurt him.  
“Did he tell you about what happened to him in high school?” Yura asked.  
Minseok looked at her in surprise because she wasn’t sure if it was coincidental that she would bring it up.  
“Remember how you had to stalk him when he was still in high school and then hand in a report about him like a creep?” Byun Baekhyun asked.  
Minseok didn’t mean to snap but spat out his name to make him shut up, which in return seemed to alienate Yura even more.  
Minseok hated how much he knew. He had memory fragments from two perspectives. When he had been eighteen, he had first been asked to report on Chanyeol and his companion. Back then, he had not thought too much about it. He had not questioned Office directives because they had taken him when he had been vulnerable. Chanyeol had been a case.  
Byun Baekhyun, meanwhile, had been at the opposite end. He had believed that his presence could save Chanyeol. But in the end, he had done just as much damage. They both should have left him alone. If they had, Chanyeol could have led a life closer to the one his sister had wanted for him.  
The thought threw him. Yura talked about her worries and Byun Baekhyun continued his aggressions.  
What eventually saved them all from the situation was Chanyeol who checked up on them.  
It felt like a ray of hope. A single person’s presence could make all the difference. That was why Minseok forced himself to go through all this. To be with that single person.  
But then Byun Baekhyun said, “She’s probably going to be nice about it because she pities you but if you want to be enough, you’ll have to change.”

When Minseok had been a child and when the Office had found him, the summoners in whose care he had been put, had always tried to shield him from harm. Even then, he had understood that they had just tried to protect him. They had meant well. But something about being protected had quickly started to feel like a thorn in his flesh. It always made him realize how weak he really was.  
“Minseok-sshi, there’s something I want to show you,” Chanyeol said and already guided him away from his sister who put out her cigarette outside the house. Byun Baekhyun followed them when Chanyeol lightly pushed Minseok past his father in the living room and his mother in the kitchen and towards his room at the end of a short corridor. He slammed the door shut but Byun Baekhyun simply floated through it.  
“What now?” Byun Baekhyun asked.  
Chanyeol’s hand was still on Minseok’s back when he said, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He spoke informally, so it was obvious who he addressed. He always talked to Minseok as though they were still strangers.  
“I’m just trying to give him advice,” Byun Baekhyun said and floated towards the window.  
“Yeah, well, don’t,” Chanyeol said. “Especially not when my sister gives him a pep talk. What’s he supposed to do? Make her think he’s insane when he tells you to shut the fuck up?”  
“I wouldn’t have to give him advice if she didn’t already think he was insane,” Byun Baekhyun said. “She doesn’t mention it to you but she usually uses adjectives like ‘weird’ and ‘peculiar’ to talk about him behind your back. Not sure if that’s a good sign.”  
Chanyeol didn’t immediately respond. He threw Minseok a quick look. That was what all the adult summoners had also done. He had been eleven and had not been able to read and write, so they had assumed that he didn’t understand complicated words. They had called him ‘traumatized’ and ‘orphaned’ and ‘unique’. He had understood the words but had never thought of them as something to describe him, so he had pretended to be deaf. The adults had talked and he had drowned them out, just like how he had drowned out the ghosts who had screamed at him for being a murderer.  
“Okay, can you leave?” Chanyeol asked. “I’m seriously tired of listening to your shit right now.”  
Byun Baekhyun flickered but then shrugged and left through the door. He knew that he could always come back. Chanyeol’s anger at him was never permanent.  
“Are you okay?” Chanyeol asked. His tone was gentle.  
But that only made it worse. The ones who protected Minseok were always kind. They thought that they helped him by crouching down on his level. As if he somehow was far below them.  
Chanyeol tried to take his hand but he took a step backward and said, “I would like to go to the bathroom.”

Somewhere along the way, he had missed an important lesson in life.  
“I guess what we’re supposed to learn from this is that people like you more if you show weakness,” Luhan had once said when they had sat in the reading room of the archives doing their homework. They had spent the whole weekend summarizing the reports of a famous summoner who had eventually turned into a legendary ghost. He had not been like Minseok but had been so successful that there was a portrait of him in the entrance hall.  
“That’s what he did anyway,” Luhan had said and had leaned back in his wooden chair. In front of him had been an array of notes in cursive Chinese. If nothing had happened to him, Luhan probably would have become a scholar of some sort.  
“First, he tried to relate and then he actively asked for assistance,” Luhan continued. “It’s really a good trick. No one denies you their help if you sincerely ask because they instinctively assume that you want to be friends with them. Why else would you ask them of all people, right? So in order to get what you want, you have to lower yourself a little.”  
Minseok had thought about that for a moment and had said, “I don’t like that.”  
Luhan had shrugged. “I mean, I guess you don’t have to do it that way. That’s for people like me who don’t have options.”  
After that, there had been moments when he had tried to ask for help because he had realized that it could potentially make things easier. But he had never really felt comfortable. So he had instead learned how to power through. As a summoner, that had been enough. But as a regular human…  
He looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror and wondered whether it wouldn’t just be easier to continue the way he had been before. If the people around Chanyeol couldn’t accept him, he maybe wasn’t supposed to be there.

He was not sure what to do when he left the bathroom and entered the corridor. He had a glimpse at the living room where Chanyeol’s parents and watched a quiz show. Byun Baekhyun was in front of a shelf in a corner while he followed the program. Something happened and the parents and Byun Baekhyun broke out into laughter. Had Minseok left then, nothing would have happened. But he lingered long enough that he witnessed how Byun Baekhyun swayed into the shelf and accidentally knocked down a framed photo.  
“Ah,” he said and hovered in front of it. The parents didn’t notice anything when Byun Baekhyun lifted the picture up.  
Minseok blinked. It was like watching a magic trick. He knew what he saw but his mind short-circuited because he couldn’t explain it.  
“How are you doing that?” he asked with his eyes on Byun Baekhyun.  
Chanyeol’s mother turned towards him. “Did you say something, dear?”  
Byun Baekhyun looked at him. His features stretched. “Oh. Well. Shit,” he said and disappeared through the wall.  
It took Minseok a second too long to react. When he dashed toward the entrance, he stumbled and fell before he managed to put on his shoes. Once he was outside, he took hold of the first ghost he saw and asked where the ghost in the school uniform had headed. The ghost cried and pointed at the end of the street when Minseok tightened his grip.  
The cold air burned in his lungs when he reached a crossroads. He tried to concentrate on Byun Baekhyun’s presence but there were too many other ghosts around that night. It was an old residential area. Hundreds of ghosts filtered through the night sky. Many of them were senile. Others hummed a dull tone.  
“Okay, look, let’s not jump to conclusions here,” Byun Baekhyun said to his right. Minseok immediately reached out and brushed against part of him. Byun Baekhyun held up his hands and increased the distance between them.  
“I’m not sure what you think you saw but I didn’t do anything wrong,” Byun Baekhyun said.  
“Then why did you escape?” Minseok asked. There were around two meters between them. He wasn’t sure if he could bridge those quickly enough.  
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because it wouldn’t be the first time that you’re trying to kill me,” Byun Baekhyun said as he flickered in the light of a streetlamp.  
He always purposely used that word. Minseok couldn’t kill what wasn’t alive. Ghosts were already dead. But by calling Minseok a killer, Byun Baekhyun automatically was on morally higher ground.  
“How did you do it?” Minseok asked.  
Byun Baekhyun grinned. “Do what?”  
At that, Minseok snapped. It was his worst mistake that evening.  
He lunged forward and managed to grab Byun Baekhyun’s arm. He had done this before, so he knew exactly how to take hold of him. The spots were different for every ghost because not all of them were similarly present. Some were slippery unless he reached for their core. But Byun Baekhyun could almost be held onto like a living person. Normally, this was when he gained the upper hand.  
But just when he tried to squeeze enough that Byun Baekhyun would give up, Byun Baekhyun slammed his fist into Minseok’s stomach. At first, it was just cold. But then he felt an impact that was not supposed to be there. Pain spread in his torso and knocked the wind out of his chest. When he fell on his back, he panted.  
“Oh fuck,” Byun Baekhyun said and floated above him. “Did you feel that? Kim Minseok, did you feel that?” He sounded excited like a boy.  
It took Minseok a moment until he managed to heave himself up. It didn’t make sense. This had never happened before. Ghosts couldn’t hurt him. Ghosts weren’t alive. There was nothing to fear from ghosts.  
His mind was racing. All he knew was that he could not allow this to happen.  
Byun Baekhyun gloated and he hated it. He hated to be weak.  
When he grabbed Byun Baekhyun’s leg, he was fully prepared to make him vanish. The ghosts around him screamed when he slammed Byun Baekhyun down. He felt the kicks and he felt Byun Baekhyun reaching into his chest but he didn’t care. It didn’t matter if he got hurt. He couldn’t go home and risk the same thing happening to Chanyeol.  
Byun Baekhyun’s edges slowly fizzled out when he suddenly smiled.  
Minseok felt a very real hand on his shoulder that pulled him away.  
“Minseok-sshi, what are you doing?” Chanyeol asked.


	8. burdensome secrets

\- advice -

It had been twenty-one days.  
Jongdae had not planned to keep count but whenever he looked at his phone in the morning and calculated how many days he had left until he had to go home to celebrate the New Year with his family, he also automatically registered how much time had passed since he had returned to living alone. He liked to think of it as a money issue. His rent arguably wasn’t overly expensive but he had still saved a lot by sharing it. The electricity bill would go down but in total, it would still be more expensive than what he had paid as one half of two people.  
All things considered, however, he thought that he coped considerably well. Once he stopped counting, he was sure that he could go back to being the way he had been before.

The problem was that Luhan, the sly bastard, was much too good at detecting a fresh wound.  
Jongdae wasn’t so stupid as to think that Junmyeon had decided that Jongdae should follow Jongin to a summoning. Junmyeon’s decisions usually were less arbitrary. This would happen because Luhan had held onto Jongdae’s phone in the hospital. Jongdae had no idea what he would have said to Jongin or if it had anything to do with him moving out. But he could smell a ploy from a mile away.  
It bothered him because he didn’t understand the purpose. But he was in no position to make demands, so he tried to think of it as an easy report. If Jongin did the summoning, there usually was not much for Jongdae to do but to sit back and try to learn something.  
“Also, it’s not like you were rejected,” he said to his reflection on the morning before the summoning. He couldn’t be rejected if he had never tried.

Five minutes after meeting Jongin at the station closest to the ghost’s house, he realized that he had probably worried for nothing.  
There was a divide between the Jongin who never took out the trash and Kim Jongin, the summoner. Jongin was good at what he did and acted as though they were nothing but regular colleagues, so it was easy to just follow his lead.  
“Do you want me to hold onto the host while you do your thing?” Jongdae asked on the way to the house and looked at the map on his phone.  
“You don’t have to if I get to him quickly enough,” Jongin said with his hands in his pockets. He sounded completely indifferent, as if he was a character in a comic who was just too cool to be concerned about anything. Jongdae had always found it hard to relate to characters like that.  
“I’m just saying that Junmyeon-hyung was sure that his nose was broken, so the guy seems to have a strong right hook,” he said.  
Jongin didn’t look at him, so he probably wasn’t in the mood for chitchats. But then he said, “There was nothing in the file about a broken nose.”  
Jongdae shrugged. “Because it wasn’t actually broken. Until Luhan-hyung made him see a doctor, he was really annoying about it though. He didn’t directly say that he was in pain but constantly squinted and sniffed. He also held a cold bottle of water to his nose for hours and put it back in the fridge when it had probably warmed up too much. I almost drank out of it but luckily noticed all the grease from his face on the plastic wrapping in time.”  
It was a stupid story. Jongdae was aware of that. But it still filled him with a strange sense of satisfaction when Jongin cracked a smile.  
“I literally had a concussion and wasn’t as dramatic about it as Junmyeon-hyung with his broken nose,” Jongdae said. And realized that he had made a mistake.  
Jongin’s expression darkened, and Jongdae shut up. So the concussion probably made a difference, although he had no idea why.

The summoning itself went well. They had done this before, so Jongdae knew the drill. Normal summoners could just talk to the ghosts from a distance. That also arguably was safer because some ghosts did lash out. But for Jongin it was necessary to get close because he could only read their memories when he touched them. It was, as Jongin had once described, like a controlled possession in that it allowed a one-sided exchange of memories without having to go through the actual process of getting possessed. It was a neat trick because the key to most summonings was an understanding of the ghost but not all ghosts were willing or able to talk. Jongin was, for all sakes and purposes, a born ghost whisperer.  
In order to achieve the necessary proximity in this case, Jongdae pretended to deliver a package. The host lived in a rundown apartment building, so they could easily get in front of the apartment door. They only had to hope that the guy would open.  
Luck wanted it that the ghost probably was a little too confident after he had managed to fend Junmyeon off. When he noticed the lack of a package as he stood in front of Jongdae, he said, “You guys don’t give up, do you?”  
Jongdae smiled and took a step backward when Jongin came from the side of the door and kicked the ghost down. He quickly put his arm around the guy’s neck and dragged him inside. For a second, Jongdae felt a little flustered. It was shit like this that had originally gotten him. Jongin had been rude but there was something weirdly attractive about aggressive competency.  
“Close the fucking door!” Jongin said through gritted teeth and Jongdae snapped out of it. He stepped inside and slammed the door shut.  
“So you’re saying that Jaebom would have agreed to lend his body to you?” Jongin asked and put his legs around the host’s torso while he kept strangling him. “Who are you fucking kidding, Jinhong-ah? Is that what you told yourself when you slept with his girlfriend? Did you really think he would want that?”  
It was strange to watch. When Jongin saw the memories of a ghost, he usually adopted some of their mannerisms. He was only violent when the ghost was.  
The ghost gasped for air.  
“Jang Jinhong,” Jongin said angrily. “At least admit it and stop making up bullshit excuses. You don’t give a fuck about Jaebom. The guy is a saint and you were always envious. When you crashed your car and when he cried in the hospital, you saw a chance and took it. But know what? You’re not going to be him. He’s not just a body.”  
The ghost yowled and Jongdae braced himself.  
Jongin tried to say more but the ghost suddenly twisted his body. There was a cracking sound that did not sound healthy and Jongin loosened his grip with wide eyes. The ghost used the momentum to wiggle free. Before Jongin could move, the ghost rammed his elbow into his side and scrambled to his feet.  
Jongdae rushed forward when the ghost tried to reach the window. The guy was tall, so he reached around his torso and held him back with one hand while he pushed one of his charms into the guy’s pocket. He could only hope that the ghost already was confused enough to be influenced by charms.  
The ghost pushed him back and Jongdae knocked over a floor lamp before bumping into a wall.  
After that, Jongin took over again.  
It took a few minutes of childhood stories until the ghost finally broke out into sobs. He left, and the host lost consciousness. They checked for wounds but apart from a few bruises he seemed fine.

He honestly thought that it had gone well. He had arguably not done much but after everything Junmyeon had told him, he had expected worse.  
It was probably because he was overly euphoric that he asked, “Are you hungry? Because I’m starving and I know there’s a chicken restaurant around here somewhere.”  
He instantly regretted it. Jongin again shoved his hands in his pockets and looked uncomfortable. “I’ll pass,” he said. “There’s stuff I need to take care of.”  
He didn’t elaborate. It most likely was true that he had a lot to do, but it still sounded like an excuse.  
“Right,” Jongdae said and awkwardly rubbed his neck. He looked around. They were almost at the station, so this was where they would have to split up. He could walk back to the office. Jongin would take the subway. “Well, then, thanks for the help I guess. And I would appreciate it if you could send me a copy of your report. Yours are sometimes classified, so I might not get it if I request it at the archives.”  
Jongin shrugged. “Will do.”  
This was probably what their encounters would be like from now on.  
He had already turned his back to the station when Jongin said, “Kim Jongdae!”  
He turned around. “What?”  
Jongin stood on the first step leading down and grimaced. “Look, if you ever,” he began and trailed off. He looked down. Normally, Jongdae would have cracked a joke at this point but Jongin seemed unusually grave.  
“If you ever think that your life is in danger, don’t try to be brave. Just run,” Jongin said.  
It was an odd thing to say. Jongdae had no idea what would have led to it. But it didn’t seem like the right moment to respond with anything stupid, so he said, “Okay. I’ll try.”  
Jongin nodded as if that eased a concern Jongdae didn’t know about and then left without another word.

Jongdae should have returned to the office then. There still were dozens of things to do. He had reports to write and a summoning to prepare. Luhan had asked him to check the grammar in a document he would have to hand in to headquarters and that he was too proud to show Junmyeon. He knew that he was supposed to return.  
But instead, he spent a few minutes staring at the entrance to the subway and then walked down the steps.  
He knew the route by heart, so he simply walked down to the platform and waited for the next train to arrive. He had to change after two stops. After three more with a different line, he left through the north exit and walked for fifteen minutes. On the way, he entered a convenience store, bought makgeolli, and asked for one of the paper cups for coffee. Soju probably would have been more fitting but his brother had loved makgeolli.  
Before he reached the intersection, he took a deep breath.  
His brother floated in the middle of the street and pretended to direct the traffic.  
“Hyung,” Jongdae yelled and waved at him. “I brought you something.”  
A couple swerved around him and threw him a concerned look.  
His brother angled his head but didn’t move until Jongdae opened the bottle and poured some of the makgeolli into the cup. Ghosts couldn’t smell but they could often hear better than the living, so he could only hope that it was enough. He put the cup on the ground and his brother slowly wafted over. He circled the cup and waved his hand through it with a frown.  
“Hyung,” Jongdae said. “I came to bribe you because I need a favor.”  
His brother ignored him and put his face into the cup. Deep down, Jongdae knew that this wasn’t really him. It was just an echo. But he didn’t know who else to turn to.  
“Remember how I sometimes asked you for advice?” he asked. “And then I just talked and talked and in the end, I usually came up with a conclusion myself? All you did was to make stupid interjections and nod once in a while. But afterwards, you always took all the credit. You said you were a muse for advice. You couldn’t give any but without you, people wouldn’t know what to do either. I need you to do that now.”  
He almost didn’t expect a reaction. His brother had deteriorated too much. Like a dog who had heard a sound in the distance, he looked at the street.  
“Hyung, do you remember your friend Kang Yohan?” Jongdae asked. “You said that you only were friends with him because you always ended up in the same classes. You stopped being friends when he hooked up with the girl you liked. What was her name again? I forgot.”  
His brother sat down on the ground next to his cup and swayed to the sound of a distant melody.  
“That one year, Kang Yohan got a leather jacket,” Jongdae said. “And you said he looked stupid it in, so we badmouthed him every time we saw him on the street. You told me to never buy a leather jacket because leather jackets are tacky and only idiots wear them. I knew you were jealous of the guy, so I played along. But I secretly thought that Kang Yohan was the coolest person I’d ever seen. He looked like a movie star. In retrospect, I think that I had a crush on him.”  
His brother still swayed but finally looked up with a blank expression. It was the worst possible timing.  
For a moment, Jongdae wondered whether he should just leave it at that. There was no point. Even if his brother still was alive, they would probably never have had this conversation. If he had ever introduced anyone to him, it would have been a girl he was guaranteed to approve of. It was not that he had ever thought of his brother as overly critical but it had always terrified him not to have his approval.  
But then he said, “I used to live with a guy who is just like Kang Yohan. Sometimes he dresses as if he’s in a TV commercial. A while ago, he bought a leather jacket and I made fun of him although he actually looked good in it. Leather jackets are stupid and so is the guy but then he moved out and now I’m…”  
He pressed his lips together because he had not really thought it through. He didn’t know how he felt about it.  
“It’s like the time after the accident,” he said. “People told me to let it all out, so I cried at the funeral but after that, I was supposed to function. I was supposed to be sad but not to a degree that I would have become a burden. And I know it’s different. You’re gone and he’s still alive, so I know I shouldn’t compare the two things. But in the end, I’m still expected to just deal with a fact that’s thrown at me. One day, the guy says stupid things that give me false hope, the next I’m supposed to pretend that nothing happened. That’s fucked up. I’m not toilet paper you can wipe your ass with and then flush down the drain. I’m-.”  
He was angry.  
He had talked himself into rage and that rage suddenly overwhelmed him. He hated all the anger that felt like acid in his veins. Ever since his brother had died, it was there. He could usually ignore it but sometimes stupid things like this happened, and it broke out.  
He was angry at Jongin. He was angry at himself for taking it to heart.  
But he knew that there was another feeling below that.  
“It’s just,” he said. “I think I actually really miss the guy.”  
His brother was still for a moment. But then he swayed towards the street.  
Jongdae sighed. There was no use hoping for a miraculous return of the brother he had lost. That was what made ghosts stay. It actually was a good thing if his brother slowly faded away. If reincarnation was possible, it would be best if he gained a chance at a new life, instead of the pitiful existence he led now.  
But while there was no hope for his brother, Jongdae felt more clear about his own issue.  
He was angry. Anger meant that he was not okay. It did matter to him that Jongin had left without an explanation. He did hate to come back to an empty apartment. He wanted to worry and argue and be frustrated at small things like missing food and dirty laundry in ridiculous places.  
What he didn’t know, however, was what he was supposed to do about it.

\- lies -

Baekhyun had lost his body because of a rash decision when he had been sixteen. There were mistakes that could be dealt with if only there was enough time but death was irreversible. He had learned that the hard way. No matter what he did, he would not be alive. He could also not borrow someone else’s body because that was the one crime the ghost police did not forgive.  
He was stuck.  
He was supposed to give up and fade away and ascend to heaven. He was supposed to accept that someone like Kim Minseok, a person who thought like a ghost and not like a person, could have everything Baekhyun was denied.  
Because Kim Minseok was alive and had a body and could touch. That was the only difference between them.  
Baekhyun had tried to comply, he really had.  
But after two years, Kim Minseok still had not changed. All he could do was destroy.

It was a matter of touch.

It was all just a matter of touch.

Once Baekhyun had realized that, he had slowly found a way to deal with that problem.

Kim Minseok had feral eyes and Baekhyun tried hard not to laugh at him when he was held back by Chanyeol.  
“Minseok-sshi!” Chanyeol said and clearly was alarmed. “Minseok-sshi, look, I don’t know what he said to you but you can’t do this. He’s miserable, so he lashes out. He doesn’t mean it. Don’t take it to heart.”  
Chanyeol had his eyes on Kim Minseok, so Baekhyun allowed himself to crack a smile that very obviously set Kim Mimseok off even more.  
There definitely was a difference between regular people and exorcists. The way Kim Minseok escaped Chanyeol’s grasp made it look easy. As if he was a slippery eel.  
He was weighed down by his conscience, however. He had always tried not to hurt hosts but had still used force if necessary. But Chanyeol wasn’t a host. When Baekhyun moved away, Kim Minseok tried to dash after him but Chanyeol took hold of his arm.  
“Minseok-sshi!” Chanyeol said sharply.  
Kim Minseok continued to stare at Baekhyun with a distorted face for a second longer but then turned around.  
“Why are you doing this?” Chanyeol asked.  
Kim Minseok didn’t immediately reply. It unnerved Baekhyun a little because he wasn’t yet ready to explain it. He was still a novice who had to relearn something he had not been able to do in over a decade. Touch was something that he could still only do as a mostly violent action. When he touched, he usually broke things. He wanted to keep it a secret until he was able to use his ability in a more positive way. Kim Minseok had forced his hand too early, and now he was at risk of ruining it all.  
“He provoked me,” Kim Minseok said.  
Chanyeol sighed. “I know that he can be a bit much. But I mean, you’re stronger than him, so can’t you just…?”  
This was the moment when Kim Minseok could easily throw Baekhyun under the bus. Baekhyun had provoked him by reaching into his body and hurting it. He had felt his blood and bones, he knew that it would have been painful.  
But Kim Minseok said, “I’m not going to let it slide.” His voice was low. For a moment, he looked at the ground. Baekhyun could hear his heart hammering. It took away some of the terror when he turned to him and said, “Either you leave, or I’ll kill you.”  
Chanyeol sharply sucked in the air through his teeth. Kim Minseok didn’t look at him and left.

Upon entering the house, Chanyeol’s eyes immediately fell on Kim Minseok’s jacket hanging on the clothes rack. He quickly took it off the hanger and turned as though he considered dashing out. But then he instead held it to his chest and asked, “What did you say to him?”  
“You were there,” Baekhyun said. “You heard it, too.”  
“You said nothing else?” Chanyeol asked and sounded suspicious.  
Baekhyun shrugged. “I guess he’s just sensitive.”  
It was almost too easy to lie because Kim Minseok had accidentally turned himself into the villain. As long as Baekhyun acted completely oblivious, he could pin it all on him and continue his training in secret.

Kim Minseok continued acting like an idiot. It was not hard to figure out why he kept it to himself. He always tried to do everything by himself and that was exactly what bothered Baekhyun so much.  
Baekhyun knew how to act human and how important it was to rely on the people around him. But Kim Minseok lived as though he was the only person on Earth.

This would have happened sooner or later anyway. If not for Baekhyun, something else would have happened that would have alienated Chanyeol for good.  
That was exactly why Baekhyun needed to be able to become a better support.


	9. the path to truth

\- how to trigger a spark -

Luhan did not always stick to everything he set out to do. There were people he knew not to mess with because it was obvious that they would not take his advice. Kim Jongin was a person like that. Jongin had snapped at him once and Luhan had taken the hint. Jongin’s occult beliefs were nothing Luhan could change because he was an outsider and Jongin in a position where he could easily ignore people he saw as beneath him.  
But the issue as a whole was too tempting to completely disregard because one half of it was Jongdae and Jongdae, unlike Jongin, was a much more willing listener.  
So when Jongdae, one day after the summoning Luhan had set them up for, came to the office, the first thing Luhan asked was, “How’s Jongin?”  
Jongdae hesitated for a split second too long and was a little too indifferent when he put his backpack on his desk. “Smug as usual,” he said.  
Luhan wasn’t sure how to work that angle but Junmyeon luckily decided to pick up the thread. “How did the summoning go?” he asked with a cup of tea in his hand. He sounded concerned and it took Luhan a moment until he understood that this was because Jongin had taken over after Junmyeon had failed. Luhan had at no point thought of it as a difficult summoning that really warranted asking for help but Junmyeon would think of that differently. He also had a habit of being overly serious about everything.  
Jongdae shrugged. “It was quick. The whole thing took less than an hour, including calling headquarters to check if the host needed a psychological evaluation. If all summonings took that little time, we’d definitely be more effective.”  
Junmyeon’s mouth formed a thin line because he probably saw it as an indirect complaint. Jongdae had his back to him, so he was completely oblivious of that when he took a binder from his backpack. Before he could turn around and try to appease Junmyeon, Luhan quickly said, “Maybe you should request a transfer. If you work in the Eastern branch, you get all the effectiveness you want because Jongin is there full-time.”  
Jongdae looked at him with an expression Luhan found hard to read. But then he dramatically sighed and said, “Yeah, I think I’ll pass. I don’t want to move. I only just got used to my current neighborhood.”  
Luhan wanted to add a joke but Jongdae already turned to Junmyeon and said, “Hyung, I told Jongin to send me his report, so you won’t have to request it. I’ll forward it to you once I have it.”  
Junmyeon blinked as though he was surprised at still being included in the conversation. “Thank you,” he said.  
Jongdae nodded and then headed off to the bathroom.  
Luhan sighed because he figured that there probably was a limit to how much he could influence Jongdae’s private life after all. Luhan didn’t have friends outside the Office, so he sometimes forgot that there was a divide between professional and personal advice.

But then, during lunch, Jongdae asked, “That day I had my concussion, Jongin came to the hospital, right? What did you talk about?”  
The question was so sudden that Luhan accidentally choked and dropped his sandwich on his desk.  
“Why?” he asked after he managed to catch his breath. He looked around although he knew that Junmyeon was out to eat overly expensive food in a proper restaurant. The sandwich crumps spread over his notes looked sad in comparison.  
Jongdae pulled a grimace and leaned against the empty desk next to Luhan’s. “Something changed after he talked to you.”  
Luhan frowned because he wanted to ask about details but didn’t want to sound nosy. If he came across as nothing but a gossip mouth, he would ruin the image of the reliable senior. So he asked, “Did Jongin ever tell you how he became a summoner?”  
Jongdae immediately looked uncomfortable. “Is there anyone who ever talks about that? The only guy who ever told me what had happened to him quit after a few weeks.” He clearly tried to make it sound funny but his voice was tense.  
It honestly wasn’t surprising. The only reason why Jongin would have mentioned the curse to Luhan at all was that Luhan had already known about it. That was something Jongdae would not have learned yet. People were desperate to talk but in the existing Office climate, they were encouraged from all sides to stay mute. So when they talked, it was usually around people they didn’t have to explain anything to. Minseok for example had only told Luhan about his mother because people had dropped hints that they were alike. Luhan had first volunteered his story and Minseok had eventually gained enough confidence to talk about himself as well. They had both been orphaned teens, so that had probably helped. Adults were more likely to keep everything to themselves. No one wanted to see a crying adult, especially not in a place where everyone had some kind of trauma to digest.  
But the point was that Luhan was sure that it would help Jongin to talk. He and Jongdae had both been haunted by a sibling but had drawn completely different conclusions. One had a healthy outlook on life, the other believed in witchcraft.  
So it was with the best intention that he said, “I’m obviously not going to tell you anything confidential because I have no right to. But I think the key to most summoners is that moment. Most people never get over it.”  
Jongdae rubbed his neck in visible unease. “That’s what this is about?” It sounded hopeless. He looked at the floor for a moment and then said, “That’s not something I can just bring up. If he wanted to talk about it, he would have said something, right?”  
He looked at Luhan for confirmation but Luhan could only shrug. Jongin struck him as the kind of person who was willing to take any secrets to the grave. But to mention that was not going to help anyone.  
“Did you know?” he asked. “If there’s something you really want to know, you can usually find files you have access to and then crosscheck, even if almost all the crucial files are confidential. The archives are massive and the staff is limited, so they don’t always monitor all the reports, especially not those written by summoners with low security levels. They can’t deny access to everyone either because we need to work with the files. If you know how to find something and aren’t a complete idiot, you’ll find it.”  
Jongdae frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?” he asked and sounded confused.  
“If you for example know that a summoner joined in 2010 and that he started in the Eastern branch, and if you focus on those facts, there’s a lot you can find out,” Luhan said. “Place names. People they were in contact with. There’s always something you can backtrack.”  
For a second, Jongin looked bewildered. But then his eyes widened a little and he looked around. There were no ghosts in sight but that did not mean that no one listened. Luhan, however, knew enough about the Office to be certain that no one would interfere either way. Security levels were strict but no one stopped a summoner who tried to do something out of the usual. That was exactly what Minseok had hated so much. Summoners would forever remain study objects. But if spun right, it also meant a lot of freedom.  
“What are you even saying?” Jongdae asked and lowered his voice. “Go behind his back and snoop around his past? All that does is make me turn into a massive creep who doesn’t know boundaries. I don’t even know if that is why he…” He trailed off.  
Luhan sighed. Phrased that way, it did almost make him feel bad for suggesting it. “I’m not saying that you have to do that but if you want to know anything at all, you won’t hear that from him. I have reason to believe that whatever happened between you has something to do with the gossip talk I used to hear about him ten years ago.”  
Jongdae narrowed his eyes and suddenly seemed furious. “But you’re not going to tell me what it is. You rather watch me fumble around like an idiot.”  
Luhan shrugged. “I don’t want to mess with him. I also honestly don’t know much. I just know that he believes something that doesn’t make sense. But while he would most likely try to get even with me, he might not get mad at you.”  
Jongdae grimaced. There probably was more he wanted to discuss but Junmyeon used the moment to return.

Jongdae didn’t mention it again after that but Luhan planned to catch up on the whole issue after a while. It was probably the excitement of having something else than hauntings to keep himself occupied with.  
But then he was busy with summonings during Christmas and New Year and he forgot. Many summoners with living families returned home to celebrate the new year and Luhan was flooded with work.  
Just when he thought that he could finally focus on less stressful things, a fresh mystery found its way into his vicinity and distracted him.

Minseok, who never called on his own, suddenly called on a Monday.  
“I need files from the archives,” he said without bothering about the usual pleasantries.  
Luhan was at his desk. A Nameless One was two desks over and whispered instructions to Junmyeon. He turned a little and said, “I’m sure you know that I’m not allowed to give any sensitive information to outsiders.”  
There was a static noise at the other end. The Nameless One shifted a little and Luhan got the feeling that it looked at him.  
“You’re the only one I can think of who doesn’t care about breaking rules,” Minseok said.  
Luhan smiled because he now was sure that the Nameless One fixated him. It had stopped talking and Junmyeon threw it a confused glance.  
“What exactly do you need then?” Luhan asked.

\- researcher -

Minseok looked at his reflection in the mirror and tried to be as impartial as possible. The bruises covered his whole torso and hurt when he moved. He didn’t know whether any of his organs had taken damage but he didn’t think so. He realized, however, that this was possibly still his own bias speaking. This was not supposed to be possible. Byun Baekhyun was dead but had caused Minseok physical harm. It took him some effort to accept that as a truth.  
As if to prove to himself that he wasn’t dreaming, he touched the biggest bruise on his abdomen and winced.  
This changed everything. If Byun Baekhyun could fight back, Minseok couldn’t blindly charge at him. So far, he had always been strong enough to cancel out all the advantages of ghosts with sheer force. Ghosts weren’t bound by natural laws. They couldn’t get tired. They could bridge distances within instances. They could disperse at will. That was what he had always been up against, but so far it had only been a matter of time until he managed to catch them. None of them had ever managed to harm him.  
For the first time in his life, he wasn’t confident that he could win.

Over the next couple of days, the texts and missed calls accumulated but he wasn’t sure what he was going to say, so he pretended not to see them. He tried to tell himself that he wasn’t afraid. This didn’t happen because of fear. But then, when he came home a few days later, he saw Chanyeol standing in front of his apartment building, and walked away to spend the night in an internet café.

When he left the city to deal with a haunted house in the countryside, he told himself that it was because there were things he needed to do. He needed to make money. He needed to save people.  
But the truth was that he began to doubt himself.  
He had watched Chanyeol and Byun Baekhyun for years, so he knew that Byun Baekhyun had always been stable. Whether or not Minseok approved of his existence was a whole different matter, but Chanyeol had been considerably well for years. Even now he was fine with the ghosts around him. The only thing that had changed was Minseok’s presence in his life.  
He wanted to think of Byun Baekhyun as a threat to everyone around him but the only person he had hurt was Minseok. He had not even actively tried it. It had been an act of self-defense.  
When Minseok had gotten hurt during that summoning with Wu Yifan, he had also attacked the ghosts first. Those were the first instances of him even hearing about ghosts touching something in the physical world.  
Still, he knew that this didn’t just happen because of his own ability. Byun Baekhyun had moved a picture. Although that did not necessarily mean that he could or would hurt anyone but Minseok.

Minseok needed more information, so with no better alternative in sight, he returned to Seoul and attempted to watch them from a distance. It was more difficult than before because his face now was familiar.  
He did that for a couple of days. There still were calls and texts he ignored but they slowly ebbed away.  
Chanyeol seemed fine. That was the thing he increasingly noticed.  
Chanyeol seemed fine with Byun Baekhyun around. They laughed and argued the way they had done for years before Minseok had barged into their life.

After a few days, Byun Baekhyun left the bike store through the display window and didn’t seem surprised to see Minseok.  
“Is it fun being a creep?” Byun Baekhyun asked happily. “How long do you plan to keep this up? Even that idiot inside will notice you sooner or later.”  
Minseok looked him up and down as he considered his reply. Byun Baekhyun was vibrant.  
“How did you learn to touch things?” he then asked.  
Byun Baekhyun shrugged. “How did you learn to touch ghosts? You don’t really know, do you? You know the reason but not the mechanics. Not every ability can be explained.” He was chatty. Minseok suspected that he was lying but did not want to be caught up in a fight.  
“What do you plan to do with it?” he asked.  
Byun Baekhyun smiled and put his hands in his pockets. It was a strange gesture, as if he tried to show that he still was human. “Even out the playing field, I guess. I’ve been thrown around a lot lately.”  
Minseok sighed. This would not lead anywhere.  
“Kim Minseok-sshi, let me ask you a question,” Byun Baekhyun said in an oddly formal way. “Have you considered the idea that you’re the villain in this story? Isn’t the bad guy the one who terrifies thousands of innocent souls?”  
Minseok didn’t understand, so Byun Baekhyun gestured around him. “None of us ghosts have done anything to anyone. And yet you kick us around and deceive the one good guy who doesn’t hate us. That sounds like a villain arc to me.”  
Minseok frowned. And then threw a look into the shop where Chanyeol showed a bike to a customer while a group of ghosts flocked around him. It didn’t seem to bother him.  
“And let’s not forget about his family who think that it’s probably okay if he is not going to marry a girl. But does the alternative really have to be you?”  
It was nothing but provocation, so Minseok walked away.  
But the words remained as an echo in his head.

He wasn’t sure what else he could do. He only knew that he needed to understand it more. If the answers didn’t come from Byun Baekhyun, he had to find them elsewhere.  
So he eventually asked Luhan for help to get information from the archives. It was the only reliable source he could think of. He hated how easy that answer had come to him.

“I can of course try to find what you’re looking for and waste time sending files back and forth,” Luhan said as he put his key card against the automatic lock. From the outside, the archives appeared to be nothing but an old warehouse on the outskirts of the city. They had at one point been further in the center but had been moved a few decades ago.  
A couple of ghosts saw them when they entered and hurriedly floated inside. Luhan ignored them.  
“But we both know that no one is seriously going to stop you,” he said. “You’re the prodigal child. They might try to get you back and once they figure out that it won’t work, they will simply make me write a lengthy report.”  
Luhan marched through the door and Minseok followed. It instantly made him uncomfortable how familiar the building smelled. He had not gone to the archives in years because it was quicker to request digital copies. But as children, he and Luhan had both spent thousands of hours there.  
“And you’re just going to write that report?” Minseok asked.  
Luhan threw him a conspiratorial smile. “Of course. There might be a promotion waiting for me at the end.”  
Minseok sighed which obviously amused Luhan even more. “On a serious note though, whatever I write will be classified anyway. Who’s ever going to read that? Maybe young summoners who have to write a thesis on you in fifty years but before that? Only the kind of summoners who think they already know everything there is to know.”  
They continued along corridors upon corridors in which ghosts and archivists quickly moved out of their way. Minseok had never seriously considered breaking into the archives because he had expected it to be a lot more difficult.  
When they reached the dimly lit reading hall, they stopped. The rows and rows of metal shelves spread out before them. Archivists bustled around them but no one paid them any attention.  
“So what exactly are we looking for?” Luhan asked.  
Minseok had to collect his thoughts for a second. If he already was here despite not being supposed to, his old security level might not matter to begin with. But if they had allowed him inside because he was still considered as a summoner, security protocols would be key. Just in case, it probably was smarter if he looked for sensitive material while Luhan combed through general files.  
“The main objective is to find out how and when ghosts can become able to touch physical objects,” he said.  
Luhan frowned. “Is that even possible?” he asked.  
“I’ve witnessed it twice now,” Minseok said. For a moment he considered talking about the wounds he had born but didn’t want Luhan to make a fuss.  
“During hauntings?” Luhan asked and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “So it’s probably good to start with stuff on hauntings. There won’t be much on that anyway.” He seemed to be in thought for a moment and then said, “All right. Let’s see how far that gets us.” He rubbed his hands and took off his coat to throw it over one of the chairs at a reading desk.  
Minseok still wasn’t sure about his strategy when Luhan already walked over to one of the computers to access the database. It was oddly comforting to see that some things probably never changed. As teenagers, they had often been in this situation. Whenever a more senior summoner had given them an assignment to keep them busy for a while, Luhan had been much quicker at finding suitable files. Minseok had struggled reading all his life, so it had always puzzled him. Luhan often overthought actual summonings but was great with raw data. If he had been less skilled as a summoner, he probably would have been transferred to the archives right away.  
It was strange to think about these things. Part of Minseok still thought that this was where he belonged. It was all he had ever known.  
He sighed. And walked towards the areas with classified files in hope of finding someone on the way he could scare into giving him access.

He had never specifically looked for hauntings before, so he had underestimated how many files there were. The higher the security level, the broader the shelf. His eyes were getting tired as he flipped through report upon report filled with murders and suicides and ruined families and revenge. The letters started swimming before his eyes when an archivist walked past his shelf with an arm full of reports.  
“You shouldn’t be here,” the archivist said in a voice that was barely more than a whisper.  
“Are you going to stop me?” Minseok asked and the archivist hurriedly moved away.

It took a while until he finally came upon the things he had been looking for. Ghosts throwing objects. Ghosts opening windows and doors. Ghosts bringing water to a boil. But nothing on them touching living beings. The reports also simply explained it with superstition and untrustworthy eyewitness accounts. One summoner had admitted to seeing a ghost burst through a window but Minseok knew the name. That summoner had eventually lost his mind to a degree that his personal file had been made public as a warning. All his files were supposed to be taken with a grain of salt.  
Apart from that, he found nothing.

After what had felt like years, he walked to the general section in hope that Luhan had found a better lead but didn’t expect too much. The more he thought about it, the less promising it felt. He and Luhan had spent years looking for interesting reports, and while Minseok knew that he could have easily missed something like this, Luhan wouldn’t have. In his need to distance himself from the Office, Minseok had also forgotten the qualities of the people who worked for it.

When he found Luhan, he sat on the concrete floor with a report in his lap. He only looked up when Minseok stopped right in front of him.  
“So, eighty years ago there was this guy called Kang Yeongbok,” Luhan said without skipping a beat, as if he was a music box being set off. “From what I can tell, he wasn’t a great summoner and was generally known to be a liar. Other summoners openly wrote in their reports that they believed that all his reports were made up.”  
“Okay,” Minseok said because he knew that Luhan preferred his audience to react.  
“All his reports supposedly were lost in the Korean war,” Luhan said. “Which seems odd to me because there are dozens of rows with reports from the fifties, but okay. Let’s say it’s a coincidence and that it wasn’t a big loss because he wasn’t great anyway. The reason why I’m telling you this is that other summoners liked to reference him in their reports. That seemed to have been a running joke for a while. Whenever someone got hurt by a host, they jokingly wrote, and I quote, ‘at least I didn’t get punched in a face by a ghost like Kang Yeongbok’.”  
The way he looked at Minseok made it obvious that there was a punchline Minseok had missed.  
“How are you sure that they meant a ghost who wasn’t inside a host?” Minseok asked.  
Luhan snapped his fingers. “Good point,” he said. “I sure at first but this other guy was a little more direct.” He pulled out an old report from behind him and flipped through it. “Enter Lee Jaewoo, who used to work in the same office as Kang Yeongbok. I honestly don’t know why this is in the general section but I think it’s because Lee Jaewoo was a low-level summoner. But anyway, fifty years ago, he and aging Kang Yeongbok seemed really close, so Lee Jaewoo mentions him in a couple of his reports. In one about a woman being possessed by her sister, he wrote about how Kang Yeongbok once summoned two women in a similar situation. The ghost sister left the host sister but rather than to ascend, she slapped Kang Yeongbok and fled. She even knocked out one of his teeth.Kang Yeongbok never found out what happened to her after that but she left her sister alone for good.”  
Minseok blinked. It immediately reminded him of the twin ghosts.  
“How did you even find out about that?” he asked because he couldn’t immediately sort his thoughts.  
Luhan shrugged. “I stumbled upon the name by accident and then looked at other reports from the same era and office,” he said as if it was nothing.  
“Did he write how the ghost managed to do that?” Minseok asked because that was the real question. It was good to have the acknowledgment that this had happened to other summoners. But whether or not it was possible for ghosts to hurt summoners had not been up for debate.  
“No,” Luhan said. “But what Lee Jaewoo did write about is Kang Yeongbok didn’t think that the ghost had learned it by herself. Someone had taught her.”  
“Who? Another ghost?” Minseok asked when all the lights around them died. There were no windows, so they were surrounded by complete darkness. He took his phone out of his pocket but it didn’t turn on. Just to be sure, he reached out until he touched the top of Luhan’s head.  
“I haven’t spontaneously gone blind, have I?” Luhan asked. His voice was tense.  
Coldness filled he space around them.  
“Kim Minseok, you’re not supposed to be here,” a voice like waves crashing into shore said very close to Minseok’s ear.


	10. compromises

\- privacy -

Something Jongdae sometimes forgot about was how overbearing his brother had often been. With time ticking away and his family still constantly comparing them, he sometimes felt small in the shadow of this idea of a guy who had seemed perfect. His brother had been twenty-eight when the accident had happened, the same age Jongdae was now. But unlike him, he had had a career and a car and a fiancée and the adoration of everyone around him. Everything had run smoothly for him. Someone like that shouldn’t have died.   
But the truth was that the great Kim Jongdeok had also had his flaws.   
For one, he had not always known boundaries. As the oldest child, four years dividing him and Jongdae, he had always assumed that all his decisions were right and that Jongdae could not possibly know what was good for him. Most of the time, it had not been much of an issue. Jongdae had appreciated the protection and had never really had much to hide. Before the Office, his life had been an open book.  
But in retrospect, he wondered if his brother had not actually killed some ideas before they could properly sprout.   
When Jongdae had been in middle school, for example, there had been an actor he had liked to an obsessive degree. He had not thought too much about it. Everyone had people they looked up to. But then the actor had endorsed a brand of juice, and Jongdae had ended up spending weeks cutting out the guy’s face from juice cartons. His brother had eventually found the collection hidden in a paper box in the top drawer of Jongdae’s desk which had led to one of the most awkward moments in his life.  
“What are you, a hoarder?” his brother had asked.  
“There’s this urban legend in school,” Jongdae had said and had been ready to make up an elaborate story. But his brother had already taken the box and walked to the kitchen to throw it away without another word.  
There had been several incidents like that. His brother checking his browser history. His brother taking his phone. His brother borrowing his clothes without asking for permission. His brother asking out girls in their neighborhood on his behalf. His brother constantly meddling.  
Jongdae had never complained because he had believed him to be right.  
But when Luhan tried to incite Jongdae to treat Jongin’s past as a research topic, those old memories resurfaced. He was on the wrong end of history now. It was tempting to think of another person’s life as a database he could access at will. What Luhan had said was plausible. Jongdae knew how the archives worked, so he was sure that he would find something he was not supposed to see if only he looked hard enough.  
That alone made him sick because it made him realize how self-righteous his brother would have felt in those moments. He would have believed his own self-interest to be identical to Jongdae’s. 

He was not going to do it. He was not going to invade someone’s privacy just because he wanted to skip the part of gaining the trust of the person he wanted to understand better.  
But he still wanted to do something, so he washed the ugly t-shirt Jongin had left behind and took the bus towards the Eastern branch on a Sunday. When they had lived together, Sundays had been the day of the week when Jongin had usually caught up to his paperwork, so it was the best possible day to catch him by surprise. It was one of those decisions Jongdae had thought through in detail but the closer he got to the actual place, the more he wondered if he did the right thing.   
He had never been to the Eastern branch but it was not hard to find the building. There was a crowd of Nameless Ones flocking around it. They swayed around him as he got closer to the entrance. A ghost he didn’t know nodded at him and said his name in acknowledgment as though he assumed everyone to already know who he was. There sometimes were ghosts like that who thought of themselves as greater than they were. It was one of those things that prove that they had been people before.  
“Can I help you?” a voice asked behind him and he turned around. He had seen pictures of her before, so he instantly recognized her. Yang Sohee, senior member of the Office. When he had started out, Junmyeon had given him a couple of her reports because they were easy to read for beginners. But he also would have known her just from the descriptions Jongin had given him before. ‘She dresses like an elementary school teacher who recently had a divorce,’ he had once said. Jongdae had laughed then and now had to admit that he had not been wrong. Yang Sohee reminded him of his English teacher in high school. She had not been divorced but had always looked dreamy when they had read classic literature, as if she had wondered how she had become a teacher and not the heroine in a 400-year-old romance novel.  
Yang Sohee, meanwhile, obviously couldn’t place him.   
“I’m Kim Jongdae,” he said. “Northern branch. I’m looking for Kim Jongin.” She narrowed her eyes at him, so he held up the plastic bag with the t-shirt. “He forgot something when he helped us out the other day.”  
She looked suspicious for a moment but then put on a bright smile. “He’s a scatterbrain, isn’t he?” she asked as though they were in the middle of a conversation between old acquaintances. That also was something Jongin had told him about.  
She didn’t ask him to follow her but seemed to assume that he would do just that because she continued to talk as she climbed the stairs. “You should see his desk. A few days ago, he lost his phone. He looked for it for fifteen minutes and then found it under a pile of documents right in front of him. Said he had no idea how it got there.”  
Jongdae could have easily given a noncommittal reply that could not be misread. Instead, he said, “Oh, yes, he does that a lot.”  
It was probably the phrasing. He realized that the moment he said it. Yang Sohee also immediately reacted. She slowed down a little and turned to him with a raised eyebrow. She looked him up and down with the kind of expression he had not seen directed at him in a while. He was being assessed.  
“You don’t happen to be the friend whose couch he occupied, do you?” she asked.  
It was a direct hit. He had split seconds to decide his course of action and opted for the truth because she struck him as the kind of person who could see through lies. “Guilty as charged,” he said.  
Her face immediately lit up which made him wonder what she knew.  
“You know, I did have the suspicion that his mystery friend was another summoner,” she said and put stress on the word ‘friend’. “He took a lot of work home with him lately and I don't believe he would do that around someone not in the know.”  
“He said he did that so that he doesn’t have to go back to the office after helping out at other branches,” Jongdae said.  
In reply to that, Yang Sohee chuckled. “He said that? How sweet.”  
She obviously drew her own conclusions and he wondered if he was supposed to clarify anything. But that was the whole problem. Them living together had been a series of tired excuses from the start. He couldn’t explain it in a way that didn’t provoke questions because he had questions himself.  
She already had her hand at the door when she turned to him and said, “Don’t be too hard on him. He acts tough but he’s really clumsy.”  
She didn’t explain what she meant and before Jongdae could ask, she already waltzed through the door and said, “Jongin-ah, you have a visitor.”  
Jongdae grimaced because this did make the entrance easier but also felt like every single moment when family members or teachers had pushed him to do something embarrassing as a child. He could immediately understand why Jongin would have complained about her so much.   
He took a deep breath. And was immediately struck by how different the Eastern branch looked from his. It was probably the smaller windows, the more spacious room and his own nervosity that made it feel like a prison. It had the smell of a new device fresh out of its plastic wrapping. The furniture lacked the rundown charm and he missed Junmyeon’s assortment of plants.  
Apart from Yang Sohee, there was no one in but Jongin who looked up from a desk piled high with documents in horror.  
“I came to return something,” Jongdae said and again held up the plastic bag he had wisely taken out of his backpack before getting off the bus. It was his only weapon.

Jongin obviously was not amused.  
“What are you doing here?” he asked right after he had dragged Jongdae out of the office area and into a separate room. There was a massive table with comfortable chairs and a beamer hanging from the ceiling. Jongdae could not remember when he had last been inside a proper conference room. He thought the Office had no resources for that and that it was normal to hold meetings in the small worn-out lounge area in one corner of the crammed open-plan office. In the east, they obviously either had more money or better negotiators.  
“As I said, I’m here to return your shit,” Jongdae said and threw him the plastic bag.  
Jongin frowned when he caught it and pulled out the red fabric. “Is that mine?” he asked in irritation.   
“Oh, it’s not?” Jongdae asked. “Sorry, it must belong to this other guy who lived in my apartment and left his stuff lying around everywhere.”  
Jongin sighed but curiously didn’t look at him. “And you couldn’t have returned that last week during the summoning?”  
It would have been very easy to just continue with stupid banter. That was what all their conversations had been like. Whenever it had gotten awkward, they had joked until nothing meant anything any longer. The only exceptions had been those strange midnight encounters.   
But he was not in the mood to joke and felt the anger building up, so he said, “I considered keeping it until last week. But this week I needed an excuse to see you, so there you go.”  
At that, Jongin genuinely looked uncomfortable. He visibly moved his jaw muscles.  
“Why do you want to see me?” he asked in a flat voice.   
“I don’t know,” Jongdae said. “There’s no particular reason. I mean, what do you expect? First, you make me get used to your face and then you make sure I can’t see it anymore? That’s some really one-sided shit. I had a whole speech prepared when I came here but it’s actually really simple. Why do I want to see you? Because I’m sick of not seeing you and of coming home to a clean apartment and of the kiosk ahjumma asking me if you dropped dead. I want to see you. If I could, I would like to continue seeing you every day.”  
Jongin stared at the floor with his mouth pressed into a thin line and Jongdae realized that this possibly was the most embarrassing moment in his life. He had said cheesier things before but he had never been this exposed. When he had come, he had believed his anger to be directed at Jongin who had left. But if he thought about it, he really mainly was angry at himself and his inability to hold onto the things that meant something to him.  
It was like waiting for the verdict in a courtroom. The moment would result in either a death sentence or joyousness.  
“I think you misunderstand something,” Jongin said, his voice still dull, his gaze still directed at the floor. He rubbed his forehead as if he was suddenly hit by a headache. “I really hate stuff like this. Guys causing a scene because I’m not the way they want me to be. It’s not cute. I didn’t think you’d be like that.”  
Jongdae frowned. And then asked, “What scene? Do you even know what a scene looks like? And what did I misunderstand exactly? That time you were rude to a girl from my hometown? Or that other time when you were rude to two of my former coworkers and told me that-.” He stopped mid-sentence. He stopped because Jongin rolled his eyes and this whole moment felt awfully familiar.  
There was something he couldn’t accept and he tried to explain it away with words. He had done that before.   
His mother had cried when she had told him that his brother had passed away. But rather than to accept it, he had snapped. ‘What do you mean? He can’t be dead. I only just saw him. Don’t make things up. How is he supposed to be dead? He’s only twenty-eight. He hasn’t even paid off his car. What about Jungah-noona? Do you think he would leave her?’   
With his unwillingness to accept his brother’s death, he had eventually called for him and forced him to stay. If he had acknowledged it, his brother might have ascended.   
If he had understood a rejection as what it was, he wouldn’t be here. They could all live their lives.  
“Right,” he said and tried to be calm. “All right. Sure. I get it. I won’t cause a scene.”  
Jongin finally looked up but Jongdae didn’t see his expression when he left the meeting room and returned to the office. Yang Sohee sat at her desk, so he put on a smile and nodded her goodbye.  
He could do this.   
He had done this. This was part of life. If he couldn’t accept that he had lost something, he would only make things harder for himself.  
He was ready to chalk it off as a humiliating experience that would teach him a lesson and was ready to leave the Eastern branch when he was suddenly pushed away.  
“What the-?” he asked but Jongin already shoved him towards yet another door.   
This time it was the office bathroom. He stumbled into the sink and immediately noticed the silence when Jongin slammed the door shut. Charms covered the walls and ceilings and blocked out all the ghostly noises from the outside. Not even his apartment was that secure. Ghosts couldn’t enter but he still heard them outside. It took some serious effort to fully ghost-proof a room.  
“Is this the next stop on the tour?” he asked. “Do you want me to see the whole office before I leave?”  
Jongin didn’t reply. He had his back against the door and looked at him with furrowed brows. It was unnerving. Like being trapped in a cage with a tiger.  
Jongin took a step forward and Jongdae took one back. “What?” he asked. He bumped against the door of one of the two stalls.  
Jongin stretched out his arms and Jongdae genuinely felt like a nervous zoo animal when Jongin came at him and pulled him into a hug. He still smelled of his stupid dandruff shampoo. Jongdae couldn’t think of a single brand he was as loyal to as Jongin to his shampoo. Something about that thought was oddly comforting. Despite everything, he was still the same person.  
“You’re kind of sending mixed signals here,” Jongdae said.   
“I know,” Jongin said but continued to hold onto him. “Sorry.”  
Jongdae tentatively put a hand on his back. It was frustrating. He knew he was supposed to make a point and leave. But he felt as if he drowned and all he could hold onto was a piece of cardboard that he knew would soak through and sink. It was all he had. He couldn’t remember when he had last felt like this. He wasn’t even sure if he had ever felt like this around anyone else.  
“The thing is, I can’t make a commitment,” Jongin said.  
“It’s not like I’m asking for your hand in marriage,” Jongdae said which caused Jongin to snort out a laugh.   
“I’m serious though,” he said after a pause. “This won’t work. I know I said things I shouldn’t have. And I know I didn’t handle it very well. But I can’t do this.”  
“Why?” Jongdae asked and Jongin finally let go. He mustered him from half an arm’s length.  
“You’ll die,” he said. “And I don’t want that.”  
Jongdae frowned because he wasn’t sure what kind of threat this was supposed to be.  
Jongin had already opened the door when he said, “So I think it’s for the best if we just go back to being distant colleagues.”

Luhan had said that before. That Jongin believed in something that didn’t make sense.  
Jongdae wasn’t really sure what to make of it, so for a couple of days after that, he lived his life on autopilot. He went to work, did his neighborhood rounds, ate nothing but ramyun and eventually packed his bag to visit his family.  
It was only when he sat inside the express bus that he finally had a moment of enlightenment.

There was a ghost on the bus. Most ghosts avoided moving vehicles because it took some effort to stay inside and not be flushed out in the middle of nowhere. That way, vehicles were a foolproof way to escape most ghosts. They were quick enough to follow a bike but eventually lost track of anything faster. Public transport, especially buses, were perfect because ghosts found it hard to focus on them. They looked too alike and were filled with too many people.  
But on this bus, there was a ghost. It was a little girl who traveled with a family who couldn’t see her. Jongdae tried not to focus on them but they were two rows in front of him and there wasn’t much else to look at except for moving cars and paddy fields in the distance.  
The ghost was peaceful for most of the trip and happily sat next to a much older girl who looked out of the window. Jongdae didn’t hear what they were saying but half an hour before the planned arrival time, the ghost threw a tantrum. She yelled at what might have been her parents and her sister but no one paid her any attention. She hit them but all that did was to cause her supposed mother to put her scarf tighter around her neck and cuddle up to her supposed husband. The ghost girl stomped her feed and marched through the rows and Jongdae made the mistake to look her right in the eye when she stopped in front of him.  
“Ahjusshi,” she said and he looked away. It was too late. She now started yelling at him and he tried hard to ignore her. When she tried to kick him, she toppled over. The ghosts in his hometown tended to be very aggressive because they knew his family, so he had put extra protection. With all the charms tucked in every pocket of his clothes, he was a walking ghost repellant. The ghost tried again but couldn’t touch him. She tried to jump at him from the case storage above his head and nearly fell through the window when she bounced off him. He accidentally snorted a laugh. And then suddenly made a connection he had not seen before.  
Ghost protections. That was the key.  
What connected all employees of the Office were ghosts. Ghosts had changed their past, ghosts dictated their present, ghosts influenced their future.  
In an apartment with light protections, Jongin had sometimes been clingy.   
In a conference room that would be frequented by high-level ghosts, he had been distant.   
In a completely protected toilet, he had suddenly been candid.  
He was afraid of something that Luhan believed to be connected to his past.   
His past would be haunted by ghosts.  
“Can you stop for a second?” he asked the ghost. She hesitated with her foot in midair and looked at him with wide eyes. The guy in the row in front of him turned around with a frown.   
Jongdae ignored them both because he had found a clue. But that clue led him back to the same dilemma as before.

He hesitated to make a decision. He didn’t think it was wise to browse through reports in his parents’ house. The people in his family had no concept of privacy, so even though he could stay in his own room which had been turned into a guest room, there always was a chance of someone bursting in unannounced.  
So for the moment, he listened to his grandmother’s confusing stories of her youth, watched TV with his father, got sick from eating too much of his mother’s food, and only snapped on the third day.  
The families of two of his uncles were over on a visit and had brought a group of male relatives with almost identical names. His aunt, the mother of Kim Jonghyuk and Kim Yueui, again confused her nephews Jonghwan, Jongsoo and Jongsup.   
“Why are there so many boys in this family?” she asked angrily. “It’s driving me insane. Kim Jonghyuk, Kim Jonghwan, Kim Jongdae,..” She continued to list existing names and eventually cited made-up ones. Her son, still in high school, threw himself on the floor in laughter. “Kim Jongwoo, Kim Jongki, Kim Jongcheol, Kim Jongin,...”  
Jongdae looked up from the card game he played with two of the other Jongs. It was stupid but just to hear the name in his house completely threw him. As if the world reminded him that he ran from his responsibilities.

On the afternoon of that same day, he took the bus to the neighboring town to visit the Office branch responsible for their district. He had never gone there before, so it instantly made him appreciate his own office more. This branch was on top of a closed grocery store in a building that looked as though it had been built during the war and never been repaired since.  
The only summoner there also didn’t seem as obsessed with security protocols as people in Seoul. Jongdae had barely said his name and asked if he could borrow a computer when the guy already waved him over to a desk covered in yellow paper and equipped with an old desktop computer.  
He half-expected not to be able to do anything because the internet connection was incredibly slow. But after a few minutes of drumming his fingers on the desk and earning mean side glances from the other summoner, he finally accessed his account. He ignored all emails and immediately went to the report database.  
Luhan had given him two keywords. 2010. Eastern branch. He also knew that Yang Sohee had been a summoner for decades and that summoners rarely were transferred. So he started with her reports.  
He quickly found Jongin’s name but it all sounded like the kind of lore that made skilled summoners sound like mythical creatures. Young Kim Jongin had been a great summoner from the start, so reports about him were like those about Kim Minseok. Interesting to read but not very useful for average summoners like Jongdae. It was odd to imagine the righteous genius boy and envision him to be the same person as the guy who would create a tab at a kiosk he never planned to pay back.  
He also realized after a while that all reports were biased because he, too, began to wonder why experienced summoners would end up having to listen to a random boy.

After three hours, the other summoner said, “I’m going to leave in a few minutes.”  
Jongdae looked up and realized that the sky outside the windows already was pitch-black. His neck hurt and he wondered if there even were any more buses. He didn’t want to call any family members to pick him up.  
He sighed and scrolled down the report he had only just opened. He considered closing it but then noticed an odd phrasing near the end, so he properly read it from the beginning.  
It was a report by Yang Sohee, so it was written in a relatively favorable way. It talked about her and seventeen-year-old Jongin following a host across the city. They had driven for quite a while when they had suddenly needed to abort the mission. The ghost of Jongin’s sister Kim Sunyoung had jumped in front of Yang Sohee’s car and screamed at her.  
‘Kim Jongin assured me that he would not let it affect him but his sister continued to cry, so I decided that the main priority was to remove him from the scene,’ Yang Sohee had written. ‘I dropped him off at the Office compound after that and told him to rest but he immediately returned to work. I suspect that there is not much comfort in staying in the dormitories. I have heard the same thing from other orphans, so we might have to reassess how we deal with them in the future. Our goal should be to become a safe haven for children who have gone through horrible loss at a young age, and not make their lives even more miserable.’  
This was what Luhan had talked about. Sensible information that were somehow overlooked and ended up in places where everyone could access them.  
Jongdae reread the paragraph a couple of times and then said, “Shit.”  
He immediately thought of the ghost he had seen the day he had suffered a concussion. A young woman in a summer dress that had looked out of fashion who had smiled at him.  
Had she looked similar to Jongin?  
He couldn’t remember.  
But what bothered him, even more, was the other part.   
There were facts he had known and yet never connected.  
Many summoners who joined at a young age had been orphaned.  
Jongin had joined as a teen.  
It had happened twice that Jongin’s house had burnt down.  
Something major must have happened to Jongin or else he would not have become a summoner.   
Something major had happened to him as a child.  
Jongdae was so used to dealing with tragedy, that he had never even wondered what Jongin would have gone through. Summoners didn’t talk about their past. That was the unwritten rule. But as the words in the report stared at Jongdae from the old screen in the Office branch in his old district, he wondered why he had never tried to ask.

\- the prodigy returns -

Luhan sharply sucked the air through his teeth. “Minseok-ah,” he said and tried to pull Minseok away but was blocked by a wall of ghosts. His hair stood on end. If they were surrounded by nothing but Nameless Ones, he wouldn’t have minded but these were old ghosts.  
“I’m willing to make a deal,” Minseok said. His voice was firm. The Principal looked at him with a distorted smile but he didn’t back down. He stared him right into his hollow eyes. “I want access to the archives. In return, I’ll report on all my findings.”  
The Principal let out a high-pitched chuckle that appeared to come straight out of a nightmare.  
“And I want Luhan’s security level to be raised. I need him to help me,” Minseok said in the kind of demanding tone that was unusual for him.   
Luhan tucked at his sleeve because this was the first time he had heard about that. Minseok was supposed to know that he had taken his place and was swamped with work. As much as he wanted to help him hunt down mysterious physical ghosts, he wasn’t sure he had the capacity. But this was not the moment to discuss that. The ghosts growled.  
“Why should we agree to that?” the Principal asked.  
Minseok didn’t bat an eyelash. “Because you want me back in the system. If you continue to let me take care of hauntings, I will report everything I learn.”  
Again, the Principal laughed. “The Office does not deal with hauntings.”  
“The Office does not end hauntings,” Minseok said. “But if you had no interest in them, you would not have every haunted summoner candidate monitored before you approach them.”  
The Principal swayed. “Kim Minseok, are you still angry about Park Chanyeol?” he asked and sounded condescending.  
Minseok didn’t take the bait. His voice was still calm when he said, “I will eventually find what I’m looking for, with or without your help. You have more to gain than I do. The prodigy is me.”  
Luhan sighed. Because that basically also sealed his own fate. Minseok usually was soft-spoken and agreeable. But when he suddenly stepped up and became cocky, it usually meant trouble. It had been over a decade since Luhan had last got dragged into something like that.

“I will help out with difficult summonings,” Minseok said on the way out of the building.   
Luhan looked at him in surprise because he had not expected him to consider that. For a moment, he thought of being the bigger person and politely decline. But then he said, “Good. You have no idea how often we had to request for Kim Jongin to help us out lately. It’s really embarrassing. If I now also spend all my time working on your project, Junmyeon might request to have him transferred for good and make our branch the laughingstock of the city.”  
Minseok smiled but didn’t reply. After the standoff in the archives, he had probably exhausted his authoritative powers for the week.  
“If you’re back, however, we’ll return to being the elite,” Luhan said.  
Minseok grimaced awkwardly. This was the normal reaction. People had thrown the word ‘prodigy’ around for years but if anything, Minseok had seemed embarrassed whenever he had heard it. It was odd that he would force his way back into an organization he hated and that he would use a term he had never applied to himself before to do so.  
“Why come back at all?” Luhan asked.  
Minseok threw him a quick look and sighed.  
“Who do you think turned off the lights?” he asked.


	11. friendship

\- dream -

“My sister is seriously annoying sometimes,” Chanyeol says and leans his weight on the broom with a sigh. The afternoon sun lights up the room around him.  
“What did she do this time?” Baekhyun asks. It feels familiar. This is not the first time they’re having this exact conversation.  
Chanyeol lets out another, much longer sigh. It’s autumn and they already have to wear their winter school uniforms but it’s hot, so Chanyeol tears at his tie and unbuttons part of his shirt. Baekhyun tries not to stare at the exposed bits of skin.  
“She acts like Kim Saebyul is her real sibling and not me,” Chanyeol says and angrily sweeps the floor of their classroom. “Treat Saebyul to this, take Saebyul out to that place, bring Saebyul home, be nice to Saebyul… I mean, am I ever not nice to Saebyul? I never complain when she ditches me for her club friends but according to my sister, the problem is me.”  
Baekhyun laughs although he hates the image. Ever since Chanyeol started dating Kim Saebyul, he has changed. It happens gradually but Baekhyun knows that he’s losing him little by little.  
“Isn’t it normal for girls to be on the side of girls?” Baekhyun asks and puts his feet on the chair in front of him when Chanyeol moves the broom in his direction. “If you don’t want that, don’t date girls.”  
Chanyeol rolls his eyes. “And be alone for the rest of my life? No, thanks. I have urges, you know.”  
At that moment, time stops.  
Baekhyun sees himself from the outside. The real him didn’t say anything at that moment. The real him laughed and changed the subject.  
This time he says, “I can help with those urges. It doesn’t make sense for you to keep getting together with girls just because you think that it’s what society expects from you. That’s not what you want. One word and I’ll do whatever you need me to do. One word and none of us has to suffer the future that otherwise awaits us.”  
Fifteen-year-old Chanyeol frowns and looks around for an invisible director. He doesn’t know his next lines because Baekhyun has messed up the script.  
Baekhyun is serious. But Chanyeol suddenly laughs. “And see your ugly face for the rest of my face? That doesn’t sound too great.”  
Baekhyun grits his teeth.  
The scene shifts.

“My parents fought again,” Baekhyun says. He couldn’t sleep all night because of that. They never yell or break things but they talk loudly enough for him to hear every word. The conversations keep echoing in his head. His parents never openly blame him. But they all know that they wouldn’t have stayed together if not for him.  
“That’s rough,” Chanyeol says. It’s lunch break and they stand in the corridor outside their classroom eating sandwiches. Chanyeol isn’t great with words but it helps to talk to him. With him, everything becomes a little more bearable.  
But then Kim Saebyul appears at the end of the corridor and Chanyeol’s attention shifts towards her.  
He walked away then and spent the rest of the break with her. Baekhyun had eventually returned to his desk and had laughed at the jokes another classmate had told while something inside him had broken like a crack in a frozen lake.  
This time, he holds onto Chanyeol’s arm. “Don’t go,” he says.  
Chanyeol looks down at him and angles his head.  
“Don’t leave me alone,” Baekhyun says.  
Chanyeol sighs. “I can’t help you, Byun Baekhyun. I can’t relate, so it makes me uncomfortable when you talk about your parents. Frankly, I would prefer if we could just talk about normal things. Isn’t that better anyway? What good does it do to talk about unhappy things? It’s not going to change anything.”  
Baekhyun doesn’t know what to say.  
Chanyeol sways a little and then puts his hands on Baekhyun’s face to lift the corners of his mouth into a grin. “Isn’t that better?” he asks.  
Baekhyun looks at him for a long moment. The colors in the background drain. Kim Saebyul says something but the words drown in a low humming behind her.  
“Then why do you keep asking Kim Minseok about his childhood?” Baekhyun asks.  
Chanyeol lets go of his face. “Kim Minseok?”  
The world around them crumbles.

“Do you ever miss her?” Chanyeol asks as he and Kim Minseok stand in front of a compartment in a columbarium that contains the ashes of the person Kim Minseok’s mother had once been. They look at the picture showing her with a warm smile. She doesn’t resemble Kim Minseok at all. His genes come from the body his mother occupied and a father he knows nothing about.  
Kim Minseok has his hands in his pockets. “Sometimes,” he says. “It was her time to go. She was losing herself and hurt her host. But…” He furrows his brows and looks at his reflection in the glass in front of him. “She was still my mother. Not everything she did was bad.”  
Chanyeol doesn’t have any words of comfort. He’s still no good in situations like these. When he talks about uncomfortable things, it’s usually only after being backed into a corner. He snaps and curses and causes a scene.  
He has no words, so he puts an arm around Kim Minseok and places a kiss on the top of his head. Kim Minseok smiles weakly.  
“Why is it different with him?” Baekhyun asks. His voice resounds through the room. People turn their heads. “Is it because you’re older? Is it because you’ve grown?”  
Chanyeol doesn’t hear him. But Kim Minseok turns around with a cruel grin.  
“You’ll never find out,” he says and digs his fingers into the fabric of Chanyeol’s coat. “It’s too late for you.”  
Baekhyun tries to move forward but falls back in time.

“What kind of joke is that?” Chanyeol asks. He stands in front of a window with a grey sky behind him.  
“It’s not a joke,” Baekhyun says. It’s the first time he tries to be brave. He thinks that it will be okay. Chanyeol told him that it’s probably about time to break up with Kim Saebyul. She’s moved away, so it’s hard to pretend that they’re still a happy couple.  
Chanyeol tries to walk away, so Baekhyun quickly says, “I like you. A lot. Not as a friend. I’m sick of being just your friend.”  
“What are you even saying?” Chanyeol asks in irritation. “I don’t know what game you’re playing here, but this isn't funny, okay? You're creeping me out. I'm not sick like that."  
He leaves.  
And Baekhyun runs.  
He runs and runs and runs until he falls into the grey sky.

He keeps falling.  
When he realizes where he is, he finds himself as part of the ghostly soup in the sky. Other ghosts float beside him and above him and through him.

It was a dream.  
He doesn’t sleep but sometimes he sees dreams made up of old memories.  
But no matter how hard he tries, he can never change the past.

\- informant no. 1 -

It had started snowing around noon, so the streets were covered in a thin layer of white and business was slow. On cold days, people wanted to eat warm food but Sehun’s family’s restaurant was a little drafty in winter, so it was usually more crowded in the warmer months. Snow during the day also usually meant that the streets froze at night. It probably wasn’t too appealing to slide across frozen sidewalks on a weekday night. People also still were tired and full from celebrating New Year’s.  
Sehun sighed and wiped across the same spot of the counter for what felt like the hundredth time. His mother polished glasses while the five customers in the restaurant were taken care off for the moment and in the kitchen, his father probably still read his newspaper.  
Just when he wondered if he could take a break upstairs, Park Chanyeol walked in and shook the snow off the hood of his coat. Sehun waited for a few seconds to see who would follow him. This usually determined the outcome of the evening. Oddly enough, Chanyeol was alone. Not even his ghost groupies flocked around him.  
Chanyeol usually wasn’t difficult to deal with but Sehun had a bad feeling about this.

“Has Minseok-sshi been here lately?” Chanyeol asked the moment Sehun put a glass of water in front of him.  
Sehun groaned. He had heard about things like that before. When couples stayed together for a while, they sometimes adapted each other’s habits. As far as Sehun could tell, Chanyeol had been a normal guy before. But thanks to Minseok he slowly turned into another hobby interrogator who didn’t waste time on pleasantries.  
Sehun wanted to complain about that but Chanyeol seemed serious, so he said, “Not since that time he was here with you.”  
Chanyeol sighed. Something was off. The two were usually inseparable to a degree that even Sehun’s father, son of a shaman and yet completely oblivious of his surroundings, had asked if they were ‘like that’.  
“Why?” Sehun asked. He quickly looked around but his mother was still busy with the glasses, so there was nothing urgent for him to do either. He slipped into the seat in front of Chanyeol.  
“When we were here last,” Chanyeol said and furrowed his brows as though it took him some effort to sort his thoughts. “There was something he talked to you about, right?”  
Sehun immediately knew what he meant because the conversation had resounded with him for quite a while. He usually felt confident that he knew everything he needed to know about ghosts. Everything beyond that was just filler he could ignore. But Minseok sometimes posed questions that made Sehun feel as though he understood nothing at all.  
“You want to know what it was?” Sehun asked.  
Chanyeol nodded.  
Sehun leaned back in his seat and folded his arms in front of his chest. “If he didn’t tell you, I’m not sure I should. It’s probably better if you ask him directly. I don’t know much anyway.”  
Chanyeol looked at him for a moment and then averted his gaze. He stared at the snow flurry outside for a moment and very obviously was unhappy with the progression of the conversation. “I would if I could,” he said after a moment. “But I haven’t seen him in weeks.”  
“Oh,” Sehun said because it finally dawned on him what this was. He had become the friend who could be consulted about relationship trouble. He could only hope that his mother didn’t hear them or else she would tease him for weeks. He cleared his throat. “And you think it’s related to what he talked to me about?”  
Chanyeol grimaced and looked apologetic. “I don’t know. It might. I’m honestly running out of options.”  
Sehun scratched his neck. He didn’t want to get between guys who dated and fought because that sounded like it could get violent. But he also knew the great Kim Minseok and his penchant for secrecy. He did that a lot. He asked Sehun annoying questions but never involved Chanyeol although Chanyeol could also see ghosts. It didn’t seem right to hide everything.  
So he said, “He asked me if my grandmother told me anything about ghosts being able to touch people.”  
Chanyeol frowned. It was the exact reaction Sehun had had. Ghosts weren’t supposed to touch people. But who could tell what was possible and what not in a world where Minseok himself could also touch ghosts?  
“Remember his wound?” Sehun asked and motioned at his own neck. “He said a ghost did that to him.”  
It took Chanyeol a moment to react. He looked confused, as if he was a student who had only just been asked a difficult math question and who tried to go through the equation in his head. But then his eyes widened in horror.  
“A ghost hurt him?” he asked.

“Such a cold night,” Sehun’s mother said and rubbed her arms. “Why didn’t your friend stay and eat something?”  
Sehun shrugged and took off his apron to finally go upstairs for a quick break. “I don’t know. I guess he’s busy.”  
His mother sighed. “You should tell him to come by more often. He and his friend always eat a lot, never stay longer than they have to, and don’t cause commotions. More customers should be like that.”  
He snorted a laugh because his mother always had a strange way of declaring her affection for others. The last time he had brought a girlfriend home, she had called her ‘not too noisy’. It was the biggest compliment she could give.  
“I’ll tell them,” he said but wondered whether they would even have the time. He had no idea what was going on and he didn’t want to be involved. But it did seem like trouble.

\- informant no. 2 -

The announcement came in the most unspectacular way possible.  
It was the first week of the new year and they were swamped with work. Jongdae had planned to take at least half a day off to continue with his investigations but couldn’t ask when everyone was busy. It was the payback for him spending time with his family during a season when possessions usually spiked. It would take a while for things to calm down. Until then he would have to work.  
He figured that they were all in the same boat but on the third day, he noticed that something about Luhan was off. He spent almost all day at his desk and when he went on break, he locked a bunch of documents in a drawer. Luhan was the most senior among the three of them but had never been particularly secretive. He also scolded Junmyeon a lot less than usual. Normally, he went through Junmyeon’s summoning schedule in the morning and then decided to take care of a large proportion of them himself.  
‘We should all do what we excel at and you excel at paperwork,’ he had once told Junmyeon.  
Him being preoccupied with paperwork couldn’t be a good sign, especially because it also seemed to puzzle Junmyeon.  
“Is there something going on with Luhan-hyung?” Jongdae asked when he walked into the kitchen to get himself a fresh cup of coffee.  
Junmyeon put his box with expensive tea back in the cupboard but didn’t reply.  
“Does he have a special mission or something?” Jongdae asked because he thought that Junmyeon might not have heard him.  
“I wouldn’t know,” Junmyeon said a little too curtly and Jongdae dropped the conversation.  
In retrospect, it made him feel bad. He normally would have tried to ease the tension but he had enough on his mind to keep him preoccupied.

On the fourth day, Junmyeon finally approached Luhan with a folder.  
“Sunbae, there’s a possession I would like you to have a look at,” he said. He was awfully polite about it. In his position, he normally should have been able to give him orders.  
Jongdae, in the middle of refilling his stapler, held his breath.  
Luhan took the folder with a disinterested look and skimmed through it. He seemed ready to just return it to Junmyeon and tell him to do it himself. But then he just put it on a pile next to him and said, “I’ll tell Minseok to take care of it tomorrow.”  
Junmyeon seemed confused but didn’t say anything, so Jongdae asked, “Minseok-hyung? Kim Minseok?”  
Luhan looked at him and shrugged. “Yes. I’m working on something for him, so he agreed to help. Headquarters knows about it. They said they’d restore his old account.” The last part was directed at Junmyeon.  
“Oh, I see,” Junmyeon said, completely caught off guard. “If he needs a desk, he can have his old one.”  
“Yeah, I told him,” Luhan said and turned back to his screen.  
Junmyeon lingered for an awkward moment, then nodded to himself and returned to his own desk.  
Jongdae accidentally dropped his stapler. Maybe he read too much into it but Minseok returning and Luhan helping him with something did not seem like the kind of thing that should be dropped in a casual conversation. It sounded like the beginning of the end of the world.

On the fifth day, Minseok walked into the office a little after noon and sat down at his desk as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He had always been good at making unremarkable entrances but it was still strange how ordinary it felt. It had been two years since he had quit but the Office had not changed. As if they had secretly waited for him to be back, they had left his desk empty. All he did was to fill a spot that belonged to him anyway.  
The idea bothered Jongdae. It felt strangely hopeless. He didn’t know if Minseok had only left because of what had happened to Yixing or if there was anything else. But whatever it was, it had been a major step for someone who had spent half his life as a member of the Office. To come back made it seem as if there was no chance at a life beyond being a summoner.  
Jongdae had never considered quitting because he didn’t know if there was anything else he could do as long as he still saw ghosts. But he had not thought of it as driving into a dead-end street either.

“So what’s this big project Luhan-hyung helps you with?” Jongdae asked although he did not seriously expect an answer. He and Minseok sat next to each other in the crowded train home and he mainly needed a distraction. Even if it was just him talking, that already was enough.  
Minseok seemed deep in thought and thus didn’t reply.  
“That probably doesn’t count for much but I think it’s good that you’re back,” Jongdae said. “It’s been tense lately. Sometimes it’s like watching tortoises fight. They slowly have a go at each other but they’re tortoises, so the worst they can do is flip each other over.”  
Minseok blew a toneless laugh through his nose. So he did listen after all.  
“I think Junmyeon-hyung doesn’t really know what to do,” Jongdae said. “He’s been put in charge but Luhan-hyung doesn’t listen and is constantly at his throat. I try not to pick sides but…”  
He didn’t finish the sentence because he reckoned that he always swayed a little more towards Junmyeon’s side but for Minseok it would be the exact opposite. He didn’t want to create new fronts.  
“Luhan can’t accept that he will always be held back,” Minseok said. “That’s why he made it a habit to pick easy fights.”  
Jongdae frowned. If anyone else had described Luhan like that, he probably would have thought of it as being patronizing. But if anyone understood Luhan, it would be Minseok. “How does he know though? Doesn’t it only get worse if he has too much of an attitude?”  
“There’s a system in place that determines how far a summoner can go,” Minseok said. “That’s why I was technically also below Junmyeon in ranks. But unlike Luhan, I could opt out of it because I had extra duties.”  
Jongdae thought about that for a moment. It didn’t make sense. He had never thought of Minseok as below Junmyeon but he could see why Minseok was rated differently. Luhan wasn’t a genius but definitely a very good summoner. It made no sense to hold him back on purpose.  
But there also was something else. Back when Minseok had been a regular member, he had never been open about anything, especially not Office policies. Jongdae doubted that he would have simply talked about the meaning behind ranks.  
The next station was announced and Minseok looked at a spot in the distance.  
“If you know that much, why come back?” Jongdae asked.  
The train rolled into the next station and Minseok suddenly jumped up.  
“Hyung?” Jongdae asked and looked at the display. There was still one more station until they reached home but Minseok pushed towards the exit. “Hyung, this is the wrong stop!”  
The doors closed and Jongdae blinked. Minseok stood outside on the platform. “What the hell?”  
“Kim Jongdae,” a voice said and he looked up. Park Chanyeol seemed out of breath as he stopped in front of him. His collar of his coat was wrinkled as if someone had pulled at it.  
“You have some really bad timing. Minseok-hyung only just…” He pointed at the door and then understood. “Right. He saw you and fled. Is that what happened?”  
Chanyeol sighed and Jongdae pulled a grimace. So he wasn’t the only one who had trouble with a difficult summoner.  
“Want to get a drink?” Jongdae asked. “Since you were already dumped?”  
Chanyeol looked around as if to check whether a better alternative was in sight and then shrugged.

Jongdae’s vision had already clouded a little when he said, “I don’t know why he’s back. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed. No one tells me anything. All I know is that he and Luhan-hyung work on some secret research project. Luhan-hyung is practically glued to his screen because of that.”  
Chanyeol took a gulp of his soju with a glum expression.  
“Luhan-hyung is no one you have to be worried about by the way,” Jongdae quickly said because he didn’t want to be responsible for any further issues. “I heard they’ve been friends for ages.”  
Chanyeol frowned in a way that made it obvious that Jongdae had misunderstood something. “Oh, yes, I met him before,” Chanyeol said.  
“Right,” Jongdae said and scratched his jaw. It probably wasn’t so unusual. From everything he had heard, Minseok and Luhan had been best friends since they had joined as teenagers. To be in that kind of situation together probably made a huge change. Until Jongdae’s brother had died, he had been in contact with a couple of friends from his hometown. Some had moved to Seoul like him and they had regularly met to share their experiences in the big city. He had only stopped attending when it had become harder and harder to explain what he did for a living. That was what the Office did. It isolated people and created bonds that wouldn’t exist otherwise. That was probably also part of his connection to Jongin. There was a certain comfort in not having to explain or lie about certain things.  
Jongdae tried not to dwell on the thought. He was too drunk to worry about Jongin. But then, as he watched Chanyeol refill his glass, something clicked into place.  
“Chanyeol-ah,” he said.  
“What?” Chanyeol asked.  
“Look, I’m not trying to be indiscrete,” he said which caused Chanyeol to raise an eyebrow at him. “But do you know how Minseok-hyung ended up in the Office? Was he orphaned by any chance?”  
Chanyeol choked which was reply enough.  
The thought had suddenly hit Jongdae. If Minseok and Luhan were friends because they had become orphans as children, they mirrored Jongin’s story. They were experienced summoners who knew everything and everyone but were never put in charge of anything greater. Jongin was not in charge of a branch and had never had his own trainees. It obviously wasn’t just an age issue. Like Minseok, he was used as a special weapon.  
There was a revelation hidden somewhere but he couldn’t put the facts together in the right order.  
“That’s not something I should talk about behind his back,” Chanyeol said with some delay.  
“Oh, no, I agree,” Jongdae said. Minseok’s past was even less of a business to him than Jongin’s. “It’s just part of a theory anyway. That’s the annoying part about working for the Office. There are so many secrets that you’re forced to come up with your own conspiracy theories.”  
He laughed but Chanyeol frowned at him.  
“Is your theory related to Kim Jongin?” he asked.  
Jongdae felt the smile freeze on his face. He was probably way more obvious than he liked to think.  
“I suppose it is,” he said.  
Chanyeol made a face and picked up a piece of dried squid to chew on while he folded his arms in front of his chest. “Okay,” he said. “There’s something Minseok-sshi told me before. Maybe that helps.” He made a long pause and looked at the ceiling for a moment as if the answer was written there.  
“I’m all ears,” Jongdae said because he wasn’t sure how drunk Chanyeol was and whether he needed a reminder to talk.  
“What happened to him was unusual,” Chanyeol then said. “He said he looked through thousands of files and couldn’t find of a single case like his. Because of it, he developed an ability that’s also unusual. If Kim Jongin is like that, maybe that’s the key.”  
Jongdae thought about it for a moment. Every case he had read about or personally dealt with at the Office had been unique to a certain extent. But he still couldn’t think of a single thing that had surprised him. After he had accepted that ghosts were real, everything else had somehow made sense in that context.  
“Unusual how?” he asked.  
Chanyeol shrugged. “If Minseok-sshi is back at the Office anyway, it’s probably best to ask him.”  
Jongdae was about to point out the irony that the guy who was ignored by the secretive Kim Minseok, would suggest him as a potential contact. But then Chanyeol already said, “That’s his thing. He likes to save people from ghosts. Maybe that's what you need.”

When they finally left the store, it was already past eight. Chanyeol slipped on a patch of freshly fallen snow and knocked over a bike which caused Jongdae to break out into drunken laughter. In return, Jongdae stumbled over his own feet and slid across the icy sidewalk.  
“That’s karma,” Chanyeol said with a face that was red from the cold.  
“Fuck karma,” Jongdae said and brushed the ice off his pants as he got back up. He tried to act offended but accidentally cracked a smile.  
He had forgotten about that. He couldn’t remember when he had last laughed about something stupid with someone who wasn’t family or part of the same organization or anyone else who wanted him to act a certain way. If there was one thing he had neglected over the last four years, it was ordinary friendship.

\- reality -

Chanyeol was drunk when he came home that night, so Baekhyun braced himself. When Chanyeol was drunk, he couldn’t see him. It had been a while since that had happened last. Kim Minseok wasn’t a heavy drinker, so Chanyeol usually held back around him. Without him, Chanyeol fell back into old patterns.

Baekhyun should have followed him. Maybe that would have stopped him.

“You stink,” Yura said when she ran into Chanyeol on her way from the bathroom. “Did your boss force you to attend another get-together?”  
Chanyeol shrugged. “I met a friend on the way.”  
“What friend?” Baekhyun asked but Chanyeol couldn’t hear him.  
“On the way to where?” Yura asked but was met with the same silence.

Chanyeol brushed his teeth and held his face under the faucet for so long that Baekhyun wondered if he tried to drown himself. He considered pulling him away from the water but didn’t trust himself enough yet. 

When he was in his room, Chanyeol put his phone on his desk and opened the drawer that contained a random collection of utensils. He rummaged through it for a moment in what Baekhyun assumed to be drunk stupor and then said, “Can you come over here for a second?”  
He had his back turned to him, so Baekhyun asked, “Who? Me?” The phone still lay on the desk, so it wasn’t a call.  
“Do you see anyone else around?” Chanyeol asked.  
“You can hear me?” Baekhyun asked because that probably meant that Chanyeol was less drunk than he looked. He came closer. From his angle, he could see that Chanyeol held something in his hand but not what it was.  
When he was level with him, he reacted too slowly.  
Chanyeol stretched out his arm into Baekhyun’s torso. It shouldn’t have mattered but Baekhyun felt a dull sensation. Like being sucked into nothingness.  
He moved away but Chanyeol followed him and continued to wave his arm at him. He held two of the talismans Kim Minseok had given him and that he had politely stored away. They were both stronger than usual charms, so if Baekhyun had been a regular ghost, they could have easily harmed him.  
“What are you doing?” Baekhyun asked. His voice came out as a screech.  
He was at the ceiling, so Chanyeol threw one of the talismans.  
Baekhyun made the mistake to block it off.  
Chanyeol let his hands drop to his sides and looked up to him.  
Maybe he had thought that it had bounced off the wall.  
Maybe he didn’t notice anything.  
“Byun Baekhyun,” Chanyeol said. His voice was eerily calm. “It should be me who’s asking that. What did you do to Minseok-sshi?”  
For a second, Baekhyun couldn’t hold onto his shape. Part of him dropped. Another rose,  
“What did I do to him?” he asked. “Is that something you should ask a victim? Do you ever ask him what he does to me?”  
Chanyeol rubbed his face. “I ask him not to do anything to you all the time and yet you keep provoking him. I can’t blame him for snapping. If he seriously tried to harm you, he would have done that already. The only thing that stopped him is me. And how do you repay that? By finding a way to hurt him? Why are you doing that?”  
The worst part probably was how patient he sounded. As if he talked to a child.  
Baekhyun didn’t like it.  
He looked down at his shoes, the same immaterial dress shoes he had worn for twelve years. He had taken them off the day he had jumped. But when he had looked down on his body, he had worn them again. He had wondered about that for a while.  
Why had he only been complete with shoes? He couldn’t even take them off now. His feet were shoes. His legs were his pants. His arms were his blazer.  
“Byun Baekhyun,” Chanyeol said and he snapped out of it.  
“Did he tell you that?” Baekhyun asked.  
Chanyeol didn’t flinch. “Does that make a difference? You just blocked off a charm that he said can be used for summonings.”  
“I didn’t learn how to do that because of him,” Baekhyun said.  
Chanyeol sighed and walked over to his bed to sit down. He leaned his arms on his legs and seemed tired when he said, “All right. I can’t listen to his version of the story right now, so let’s hear yours.” The way he phrased it made it clear that he had already decided on his position.  
“I didn’t learn that to hurt anyone,” Baekhyun said. “I just wanted to…” He didn’t know how to explain it. All the words were gone.  
Chanyeol looked up for a moment and then held out his hand. It was the one without the remaining talisman. Baekhyun wasn’t sure what he wanted, so Chanyeol raised it and nodded at Baekhyun.  
Baekhyun moved down and tried to stay calm. He had to be careful. The one living person he had touched so far had been Kim Minseok.  
He slowly put his fingertips against Chanyeol’s palm. He had to concentrate not to slide through.  
There was a slight impact. It reminded him of those times he had moved Kim Minseok’s body. It felt like touching life itself.  
“That’s uncomfortable,” Chanyeol said and Baekhyun accidentally put too much force in surprise.  
He scraped against bones and sinews and Chanyeol pulled his hand back with a yelp.  
“Sorry,” Baekhyun said.  
Chanyeol stared at his hand for a moment. He lightly moved his fingers as he said, “I realize that this is also my fault. I really thought about it and what I did is probably worse than what you did. A few years ago I genuinely thought that you still were the person you used to be. I only knew what you were like around me, so I figured the way you acted was normal. But that’s not it. The real Byun Baekhyun cared about a lot of things but you only care about me. And I kept playing along because it was comfortable.”  
There was static ringing in Baekhyun’s ears.  
“No,” he said. “That’s not it. I’m still me.”  
“Baekhyun, you’re dead,” Chanyeol said and his voice was drowned out by an invisible chorus. “When did you last check up on your family?” he asked. “Do you even know that your mother remarried?”  
Baekhyun opened his mouth but nothing came out of it.  
He imagined his mother. But her face was blank.  
She couldn’t remarry because she was married to his father. Every night they argued about Baekhyun’s grades and his father’s work and his mother’s abuse of sleeping pills. They lived in the new building close to his school. The school he and Chanyeol attended.  
“Listen,” Chanyeol said. “I can’t do this. No matter what you do, you won’t be alive. But even if you hadn’t died, who says that we would even be friends any longer? We were sixteen. I don’t owe you my life and you don’t owe me to suffer for the rest of your existence just because you had a crush on me when we were sixteen. It’s too much. I can’t let you hurt someone who’s important to me just because I feel guilty and am the kind of asshole who’s happy about the unconditional attention you give me.”  
The words only slowly sunk in.  
Like sand in an hourglass.  
“You said there’s no space for you in his life,” Baekhyun said with a voice like wind rustling through leaves at night.  
Chanyeol looked sad.  
“But there’s space for him in mine. And I hate how empty that space is right now.”  
He stood up and held the hand Baekhyun had touched with the one that was unharmed.  
The talisman dangled.  
“Byun Baekhyun, I would like you to leave,” Chanyeol said.  
His voice was firm.  
And Baekhyun realized what this was.  
Kim Minseok had told Chanyeol how to make ghosts leave.  
There were simple rules.  
Carry charms.  
Be calm.  
Reason with the ghost. Plead to their conscience. Make them understand that they hurt their host.  
Ask them to ascend.  
Waves crashed over Baekhyun.  
He lost his shoe. There was nothing at the end of his leg. His shoe was his foot. His pants were his legs. His blazer was his arms.  
He was a ghost.

Again he ran.  
And ran and ran and ran and fell into a sky filled with snow.


End file.
